


A Light That Never Goes Out

by Underhill7777



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: Bisexual Female Character of Color, Hispanic Lone Wanderer, Lone Wanderer with ADHD, Multi, Not Canon Compliant, POV Third Person Limited, Slow Build, War Veteran Charon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-20 05:18:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8237456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Underhill7777/pseuds/Underhill7777
Summary: 'Grab your hankies, children, 'cause I've got a heart-warming tale to tell. It's about a little girl's search for her... for her daddy. Waaaahh!' It all started with Three Dog's crackling voice from the radio in the bar Charon had stood in for 47 years. By the time the Lone Wanderer sauntered in, he felt like he already knew her.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this story stirring in my mind for ages now and I've lowkey had a crush on Charon ever since I got him as a companion, so I figured: Hey, why not write a story with my favorite grumpy ghoul bodyguard? Seriously, though, there's so much potential there. I felt like his character needed to be explored, so here I am. It's also about 6 AM right now where I am and I haven't exactly gotten much sleep. If there are any grammatical or spelling errors, please let me know. That stuff's super embarrassing.  
> Enjoy and comment below please!

The first time Charon ever laid eyes on the fabled Lone Wanderer, she strolled into the Ninth Circle decked out in squeaky clean Enclave Power Armor with a companion about as well dressed as she was. Her friend hung back near the door, Plasma Rifle in hand, scanning the room from behind that bulky Brotherhood mask. The only reason he knew the person at the bar was the Wasteland's number one celebrity was her bright pink hair, balled up in a bun high up on her head, little pieces sticking to the sides of her face when she took off her mask.

"Well, well," Ahzrukhal said, leaning against the bar counter with that slippery little smirk on his peeling face, "if it isn't the one and only Vault Legend. What's a pretty little smoothskin like you doing in a place like this?" His employer had a habit of speaking to the room instead of only to the person he was trying to have a conversation with, so Charon wasn't surprised when the girl at the bar opened her mouth and he couldn't hear a single word she said. And boy, did he wish he could when he saw her pointing at his spot in the darkest corner of the Ninth Circle. The two chatted for a bit while the Wanderer ordered a drink and sipped it down, but in the end, she walked out of there with a few caps less in her pocket and nothing else.

Charon had been standing in the same corner for almost 50 years, breaking up bar fights and hauling out junkies whenever they got too chummy with Ahzrukhal. After a while, each day blended in to the next, the only change being Three Dog's stories on the radio and the music, but even that got old. Eventually, he'd learned to let everything outside the four walls of his skull fade to static until _snap!_ Ahzrukhal needed him and he was back as if raised from the dead. Back to this dingy bar that looked like shit and smelled even worse. Back to making weapons in the back storage room late into the night. Back to hauling said weapons across the Capital Wasteland and into the hands of the slavers at Paradise Falls.

He didn't have a fancy Pip-Boy 9000 or whatever like he remembered the pink-haired Wanderer having, but he didn't need a terminal strapped to his arm to know it was _absolutely_ blazing hot. Mid-July and his employer had only sent him off with weapons, a bottle of dirty water, upwards of 15 bottles of liquor, and a single sweet roll. He wished more than anything as he made his way across the dirt and rocks of D.C., that he could run back into that bar, rip his Contract to shreds, and put a bullet right between that fucker's beady little eyes.

 _'Make it five bullets_ ,' he thought as he encountered his first big group of raiders. They were stuck in Springvale Elementary School like ticks and he had to deal with them almost every single time he made the journey. He just found it amazing that they kept using this place as a camp even though it kept getting wiped out. Maybe because of a lack of experience, maybe because of fear, maybe because of all that Psycho raiders loved to shoot up, they were pretty lousy shots and Charon walked away with a bunch of ammo, some food, and only a couple of wounds. They were easily fixed with the free-flowing, irradiated water of the river next to the school. Megaton might have been only a five-minute walk away, but that was no reason to get sidetracked. If he took too long getting back to Underworld. his employer would punish him. He didn't want that.

It took him three days, it always took him three days. Then he'd trade the weapons and alcohol with the slavers, set up camp outside Paradise Falls, and hike back, his pack loaded with junk and caps. It was the way the journey had always gone, for almost 50 years. Almost as long as Charon had been under that rat bastard Ahzrukhal's employ. That was the image he kept painting for himself as he inched his way across the Wasteland. When he arrived at the slaver city, though, he was surprised to find nobody posted up to guard at the entrance. He was even more surprised, as he got closer, to find the bodies of both Grouse and a new guard he was unfamiliar with lying on the ground with gaping bullet holes in the sides of their heads. Fighting the urge to gag, he cupped a hand over the remnants of his nose.

_'At least I know the sniper's not still around.'_

When he made it back to the Ninth Circle, it was early in the day and the bar was only stocked with its regulars, like Patches. He explained the situation to Ahzrukhal, who stood there eyeing him from behind the messy scraps of black hair that had fallen in front of his eyes. "We'll talk about this later, Charon. Put the guns down and go stand in your corner." Waving him off like a fucking dog. Of course. So he went and stood in the corner like a shadow, heart sinking as the day grew into evening. When 9:00 PM came, he locked the doors and turned to his employer standing behind the counter with his Combat Knife in a scarred hand. He handed it to Charon and ordered him to sit on the blue bar stool directly across the counter.

"Did you loot their corpses?"

"No."

"Cut your arm. From here," he said, pointing at the middle of his forearm, "to here." He moved his finger up to the side of his elbow. "Why not?" he asked as the larger ghoul carved a gash into his patchy skin, clenching to stop himself from making any noise.

"I was tired," he grunted.

"Unacceptable. Do it again."

And he did.

* * *

 

It was nearing the end of the summer when Charon saw the Lone Wanderer again, only now Three Dog called her a Paragon. Last he'd heard, she'd been back to Vault 101 only to get kicked out again. He hadn't had a home in a long time, but he thought it must have been difficult for her. She was still just a kid.

 _Who says you can't go home again, huh? The kid from Vault 101 did, but it looks like the prodigal daughter's return didn't last all that long. She was seen coming_ **_out_ ** _of the vault,_ **_again_ ** _, and headed God knows where. Don't let that revolving door hit you on the ass on the way out..._

But that had been ages ago, before his run-in with the business end of his own fucking Combat Knife. He'd had that thing since Anchorage and seeing Ahzhurkhal wave it around...

When she stepped back in, she had turquoise hair, pulled up in a ponytail that brushed against her shoulder. Her Power Armor was gone and so was her friend. The Combat Armor she wore was black and dusty, with a white insignia on the front that he didn't get a chance to look at. Again, she walked up to the bar without even glancing at him, chatting up his sleazy employer like he was the last bartender in all of D.C.

"Glad to see you found your way back to our little slice of Hell, smoothskin."

"I'm diggin' the afterlife theme." Her voice was raspy but soft, and reminded him of cotton. But then she went back to speaking in hushed tones, ordering a drink she didn't touch and twirling her bright hair around her small, tan fingers. The girl was small, tiny even, but she still looked solid. Even from across the bar, he could see the definition in her arms. Her pack was massive with smaller bags clipped onto it, slumped next to her feet at the base of her blue barstool. She slid the ghoul across the counter a small pouch she'd pulled out of one of her pockets and he in turn gave her a slip of paper. Leaving her pack behind, she strolled over to Charon's corner with her head held high. She'd barely opened her mouth before he started reciting lines he'd been repeating for decades.

"Talk to-"

"Whoa, whoa, slow down there," she said, holding up the scrap of paper to his face. He squinted at it, realizing it was his Contract, before looking down at her young face damp with sweat. "I have good news. I’m your new employer."

“You purchased my Contract from Azhrukhal? So, I am no longer in his service. That is good to know,” he said. “Please, wait here. I must take care of something.” Decades of degradation, torture, and blood flooded Charon’s mind as he stalked over to his now ex-employer. If the Wanderer said something behind him, he didn’t hear it. Ahzrukhal must have known. He must have. Why else would he have sold his Contract? As he got closer, they locked eyes and that somehow only made Charon hate him more.

“That’s right, Charon. Have you come to say goodbye?” His voice curled around the words like cigarette smoke.

“Yes.” And just like that, as the other ghoul turned away, he was drawing his shotgun and _bang!_ Ahzrukhal was laid out on the tile floor. _Bang!_ Just for good measure. When he turned to his new employer, he expected to find her across the room. Instead, she was a foot or so away from him, blood sprayed on her dark face like shiny freckles, brown eyes bigger than dinner plates. “Alright. Let’s go.”

“Sounds good,” she mumbled, stooping down to collect her pack, “let’s get outta’ here.”

“Ahzrukhal was an evil bastard. So long as he held my Contract, I was honor bound to do as he commanded.” He knew when he saw her eyes narrow at him that he’d lost her. There was no redeeming himself in her eyes. She’d have to redeem him on her own now. “But now, you are my employer. Which freed me to rid the world of that disgusting rat.” Her gaze flickered to the space behind the counter he knew she couldn’t actually see. “And now, for good or ill, I serve you.”

“For good,” she said, pressing the crumpled up Contract on the counter and pressing it out. “This is some sturdy paper… Look, I’m interested in a new deal.”

“Yes?”

She grabbed his Contract and held it out to him. Dumbly, he stared at it without moving. “Are you going to grab it or?”

“You wanted me to?”

“I’m trying to free you here.”

_‘Oh. Wow, poor kid.’_

“I am afraid it is not that simple, ma’am,” he said, holstering his shotgun.

“I don’t understand.” Her eyes were hard, like steel. From this up close, he could see her black roots peeking out past the turquoise and the cracks in her lips.

_‘Clearly.’_

“I am not able to hold my own Contract. If you attempt to free me in this manner, I will simply go off in search of another person willing to hold it.” The phrasing was canned, repeated dozens of time to dozens of people who didn’t understand the Contract when it came into their possession. People like the young Wanderer in front of him, who was currently staring a hole into his Contract.

“That’s impossible,” she said, mostly to herself.

“Not impossible, ma’am.”

“I can’t be a fucking slaver, I just, ugh,” she ended her sentence with a groan, folding up the paper, and tucking it in her pocket with a deep sigh. “One thing at a time. I’ll handle that later. Your name is Charon, right?” She pronounced it different from Ahzrukhal, a way he hadn’t heard in almost two hundred years. KAI-run, not Share-un.

“Yes, mistress.” Her nose curled at that.

“My name is Lana. It’s nice to meet you.” She extended her hand and he shook it firmly. “Let’s go find you some decent armor.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry I didn't post this sooner! A lot of life happened in this past week and a half. I'd meant to have this up last Monday, but c'est la vie. Anyway, without further ado, here's Chapter 2!  
> Don't forget to comment, please. Constructive criticism and compliments keep me alive.

Underworld was strangely quiet as the heavy door to the Ninth Circle thudded shut behind him and his new employer, stirring up nothing but dust. The only thing he could strain to hear were little shuffling footsteps, and he didn’t miss Lone’s tense  grip on the banged-up Assault Rifle in her hands.

“I don’t want any trouble,” the girl next to him called out to the dark, dusty void of the museum. Tentatively, she stepped up to the nearby railing. Charon caught Snowflake peering out from his usual corner, but that sneaky bastard Jethead was less of a threat than a Radroach, so he ignored him.

“Neither do we, smoothskin,” Winthrop said as Charon took his place standing tall behind his employer like a sinister shadow. Seeing the way the other ghouls’ eyes flickered back and forth between him and the Wanderer left a sour taste in the back of his throat—somewhere he couldn’t just spit it out. “Is Ahzrukhal dead?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Then fuck off!” an unnamed ghoul shouted from behind the broken statue downstairs.

_‘Hiding. Smart guy.’_

“Shut _up_ , Jim, he’ll kill us all!”

“Yeah!”

“Get ‘em outta’ here!”

On and on, a chorus of shouts while Lana tried unsuccessfully to get just one word in. “Please—I—we’re not—”

_BANG!_

A shot rang through the museum, Carol’s smoking .44 Magnum in Greta’s hand. He didn’t need to squint too hard to know she was glaring at him.

“Get that murderer out of here, kid.”

“ _Murderer?_ ” she asked, like a hired gun killing innocent people was the craziest thing she’d ever heard. Like she hadn’t just purchased the Wasteland’s most expensive shotgun.

“He killed Patches’ boyfriend.”

“It’s not his fault.” But he could tell she didn’t really believe that. She was tugging on her turquoise ponytail.

“That doesn’t make the guy less _dead_ , Lana,” Snowflake piped up from his shitty corner.

“You really should leave,” Winthrop said.

“But… I have scrap metal for you.”

“Next time, kid.”

“I… Can I at least stop at Tulip’s?”

“Make it quick.”

As they made their way down the steps to Underworld Outfitters, both sets of footsteps echoing too much in a city that was suddenly too small, Charon was hyper-aware of all the eyes on them. Not to mention Cerberus’ high-tech sensors. Winthrop had that thing running so smoothly, it was programmed not to shoot ghouls even though it so clearly hated them all.

He guessed he should thank the piece of paper tucked in the pocket of the Wanderer’s jeans for the diehard urge to jump in front of any bullet for her. So he was really hoping they wouldn’t decide to shoot the two of them in the back as they walked into the store.

Tulip was no better, shaking, stuttering, and looking up at him with big eyes. Whenever the bright-haired Wanderer would raise her voice, the ghoul behind the counter would flinch, until Lana groaned and turned back to him.

“I need you to wait outside.”

“Yes, mistress.” Her eyes narrowed as he went and stood just outside the door to Underworld Outfitters.

“No. Outside, Charon.” And her hand was on his forearm, the other pointing out the entrance to Underworld. Her _hand_.

“I cannot protect you from out there, ma’am.”

“I don’t need protecting. Now go wait outside, Charon, please.”

There was no electricity, no buzzing in his head from the base of his skull to the crown where tufts of red hair remained. Just her gaze harder than steel until he nodded and turned and walked outside of his own free will. When he leaned up against the stone walls of the museum, the buzzing returned. He wasn’t sure if it was always this loud, interrupting every thought, or if it just felt that way because of the few seconds of silence he’d just been granted.

“You’re in my spot, killer.” Charon looked up, eyes meeting none other than Greta and the scowl permanently etched in her skin. Of course, a disturbance like that wouldn’t be enough to stop her from taking her smoke break.

“I got here first.”

“Fair enough.” She took her spot on the other side of Underworld’s double doors, her disfigured silhouette outlined by the burning barrel of trash next to her. “Be careful with her.”

“Is there something wrong with her?”

“No,” she said, “there’s something wrong with _you_. Carol likes her. So make sure you don’t do something you’ll live to regret.” The full weight of the threat settled on his shoulders.

“I won’t.”

“Mm-hmm.” And that was it. She threw her spent cigarette down and waltzed back inside.

It was a few more minutes before Lana stumbled out with a suit of leather armor in her hands, her pack jingling with caps and little black baby hairs sticking to her tan forehead. “Hey, sorry about that. I didn’t wanna’ order you around, but… Anyway.” She jerked the armor towards him. “Here. This is for you, ‘cause your armor looks a little worse for wear.”

“Thank you.” He grabbed it, feeling the taut fabric beneath his fingers.

“No problem. I got you a pack, too,” she mumbled, dropping her bookbag to the floor with a thud. “You can go change while I set up your stuff, if you want.”

Again, no buzzing. He stared down at her for a moment, hunched over her pack on the floor with her lopsided ponytail and her dusty black shoulder plates, before walking away to one of the bathrooms in the lobby. Nobody had used them in a while, but he wasn’t allergic to the dust like back when he was a smoothskin, so it wasn’t as much of a nuisance as it could have been.

Taking off his armor and throwing it away made his heart race—something his heart hadn’t done in a long, long time. In his mind, there stood a long line of employers with their Miniguns and their Combat Knives and their disarming smiles.  Connecting decades and decades of suffering as they traded secrets about the Contract in his newest employer’s pocket.

No more. He’d ended that daisy chain with two bullets.

When he stepped out of the bathroom, Lana was sitting on the check-in counter in front of him, her feet dangling a little too far from the dirty tile floor. She had a large canvas pack leaned up next to her and he noticed how her posture stiffened when she saw him.

“’S’it fit?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Cool,” she said, chewing loudly. When the bright pink bloomed from her lips and popped, he realized her mouth was full of bubblegum.

_‘Nice way to soak up some Rads, kiddo.’_

“We’re goin’ to Megaton. You might’ve heard of that place, I dunno’. Have you?”

“I have.” He thought back to Three Dog’s voice telling him about the Lone Wanderer disarming a warhead in the middle of the town, reassuring him in some way that good people were out there. He just hadn’t met any yet.

“Have you been?”

“No.”

“There’s a first time for everything, I guess.” She shrugged. _Pop!_ “Here’s your pack. Keep it safe. There’s some Stimpaks and food in there. I don’t have any dirty water on me, but uh… If ya’ need anything, lemme’ know. I’ll get it for you, okay?” She tapped the bag next to her and he approached slowly, careful not to scare the girl with the Assault Rifle.

“Yes, ma’am.” Her eyes didn’t soften as he snatched the pack off the counter next to her.

She sighed, tightening her ponytail as the wet sound of her teeth and saliva filled his brain. He hadn’t seen anyone chew bubblegum since before the War. “Well, then, let’s blow this popsicle stand. Whatever _that_ is.”


	3. Chapter 3

The Lone Wanderer loved her Pip-boy. She'd wipe it down with the edge of her black t-shirt every night. No matter how dirty she was, it was always glistening. She had a thick leather glove on her left hand, under her favorite clunky contraption. Charon was starting to feel like an hour wouldn't pass without him catching her flicking through all the buttons and dials.

It was mid-afternoon, they'd just passed Wilhelm's Wharf and eaten some Mirelurk cakes with some friendly old lady and her Hunting Rifle. The girl was leaning against a rock, chewing her bubblegum and playing with her Pip-boy, and she caught him staring. As soon as her brown eyes locked onto him, he turned his head away to stare out at the muggy water.

"If you wanna check it out, you can just ask." He turned back to her, saying nothing. Her gaze didn't flinch, she just popped her pink gum and raised her eyebrows. "I keep notes on it. My memory's not too good. Sometimes I even forget to take notes."

"Would you like for me to remind you?"

"Nah." One hand came up to trace the turquoise braid that ran down the top of her head. He remembered braids. He remembered... "We're almost at Megaton. I usually take this thing off when I get there. I'll let you borrow my favorite toy then."

"Thank you, ma'am."

"Don't mention it," she said, yawning. Her nose was wide and fat, resting uneasily on her face like a chunk of dark clay. Even if she were to smile at him in earnest, he knew her lips would droop down like she was about to cry.

They made it to Springvale by sunset, his blue eyes trained on the nearby school as his employer walked through the dirt like she owned the town. Even her Assault Rifle was holstered, tucked into a strap between her back and her pack. Meanwhile, Charon's shotgun was fully loaded and ready for anything.

The Wanderer found an intact house with a peeling blue door and a wooden chair on the porch, and she seemed to grow more tense as she approached it. Her hand froze on the dirty doorknob before she turned to face him.

"You can stay out here, if you want. I'll just be a minute." He just stared. "Do you want to?"

"I do not know."

Her lips pressed together tightly. "Come inside."

And he did.

* * *

 

Charon had sat on the creaky bed while Lana scurried through the house, tossing different things into a trash can she's scooped up. She'd set the whole thing on fire with pink wine and a gold-plated flip lighter. He hadn't so much as _seen_ pink wine in decades.

She stood across the room from him, staring him down, and he wondered for a moment if she was going to make him burn himself. The flaming trash was close to her spot leaning against the wall. They spent the next few minutes laying down the basics of the Contract in her pocket.

"Unless it's specifically phrased as a command, it's not a command. Okay?"

"I... do not understand."

"If you're not sure, ask me."

"Yes, ma'am."

"And please stop calling me 'ma'am.'"

"Is that a command?"

She sighed. "No. I said 'please.'"

* * *

 

It came as no surprise to Charon that a girl like her was a local celebrity, even in a town as big as Megaton. Every time somebody looked up at him uneasily, she'd pop in and charm them. All dimples and teeth as she explained that the massive ghoul travelling with her was no danger to anybody. And they believed her!

So many people swarmed in to see her, he let himself get pushed out of the crowd. Grumbling, he sat off to the side on an exposed pipe. Whenever anyone would stare, he'd say, "I'm with her," and jerk a thumb at the crowd, and that seemed to be enough.

"Hey! How're my big, strong kids?"

"Harden's been super annoying."

"My name's _Preston_!"

"Listen, we'll talk about this later, okay? How's your dad been, Maggie?"

"He's good."

"And you, you've been practicing?"

"I put a toaster together the other day."

"Attaboy."

She must've been at it for at least half an hour before finally walking towards him. All the softness was gone from her face, and it stirred a strange sort of anger inside him.

"Hungry?"

"No."

"Thirsty?"

"Yes."

"Alright, we'll go get some drinks now. Let's just stop by my house and drop all this crap off." She stepped over the pipe he was sitting on and walked up a rickety metal ramp. He followed silently, rounding the corner after her as she pulled a key out of her pocket.

 _'I don't know what I was expecting,'_ he thought once inside.

Her house was cluttered-- _very_ cluttered. A short, dried-up Christmas tree stood up to his shoulders next to him, snagging on what little scarred skin he was showing. White string lights hung from all sorts of places, pulling his eyes up to the huge ceiling lamp of two women... _'embracing.'_

"You can just put your bag down wherever. I'll clean this place up someday, I promise," she said, sitting down on the bright red heart-shaped bed in the middle of the living room.

_'Wow. Surprisingly obnoxious.'_

Charon dropped his pack down in front of some lockers and looked around. There was a near-empty Bobblehead Stand, an armchair, some more lockers, and a _very_ dead Mister Handy in front of the stairs.

"I know it's not much," she said after peeling the straps of her bag off her shoulders, "but it's a place I call my own, so that's cool." When her Pip-boy released her wrist, it did so with a _pop!_ and a _hissss_. "It's a little grabby." Jaw clenched, she turned to him and her bright, thick braid jumped up over her left shoulder. "Do you wanna' check this thing out now or later?"

"Later is fine, ma'am."

"Later it is, then. I'll be upstairs changing. Then we're going to the bar." She stood, twisting her torso until her back cracked. "Do you drink?"

"Yes."

"Fantastic. I know some medicine, so if you get in a bar fight, I can patch you up." There was no humor in her eyes.

"My primary purpose is protection of my employer." The words were so robotic, he swore he could taste static in his rough voice.

"So you won't be drinking alcohol, then?"

"That is correct."

Shrugging, she said, "sounds good to me. Do you want, like, a sweater or somethin'?"

"No, thank you, ma'am."

"Alright, then I'll be down in a sec." He didn't miss Lana's quick hands snatching up her Assault Rifle. He also didn't miss how closely she was cradling it to her chest as she took the stairs two at a time.

_'Why have a bodyguard you're afraid of?'_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, kiddos, I know canonically Preston (Fallout 4) and Harden (Fallout 3) are two different people. But, in my opinion, the timing works, and I wanted to try something new here. Preston joins the Minutemen at 17 and at this point in time, Harden is 11 and an orphan. He has 6 years to leave the Capital Wasteland, go to the Commonwealth, join the Minutemen, etc.  
> Overall, I do try to stick to canon, but I will be taking some artistic liberties. I hope you stick around to check them all out.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this chapter feels like it has no direction, it's because this is Lana's down time. Charon's just watching her. So yeah, enjoy and please comment below!

The moment the door swung open from the tip of his employer's boot, there was a roar of drunken cheers. ' _Great. More admirers,'_ Charon grumbled to himself, simultaneously cursing his stature for making him stick out and thanking it for keeping everybody away from him. The young smoothskin next to him seemed more comfortable here than even in her own home and he thought back to the memory of her nervously sipping whiskey in the Ninth Circle.

He had figured he'd tag along, eavesdrop a little, maybe pull a man or two off his employer if they got too friendly.

"No." And he knew that voice. Hadn't heard it in ages, but that was definitely Carol's-- "What's _he_ doing here?" Gob's gruff voice rang clearer than a bell over the general din, and the lines in the Wanderer's body tensed as the weight of dozens of eyes turned suspicious.

"Relax, Gob, he'd travelling with me now."

"He's a fucking murderer." His hands were balled into fists on the dirty counter and a red-haired woman next to him turned her sharp gaze onto the ghoul elephant in the room. Boldly, she made eye contact and didn't falter.

"I mean, he's a merc." Lana said it lightheartedly, injecting her words with a little chuckle meant to smooth out the situation. And it worked. Most of the patrons turned away and continued to go about their business, but Gob and the woman next to him didn't soften their features. "You trust me, don't you?"

"You know they called him the guard dog, right?" he said, jerking a scarred finger in Charon's direction. He felt like he should intervene, but he didn't know these people the way his employer did. He didn't want to step out of line, especially not so soon.

"I didn't."

"Just thought you should know. You're a good kid." When he leaned over the counter, Lana scurried up close to him. Whatever wisdom he imparted on her, she kept his eyes trained closely on him all night.

* * *

"Do you know what day it is?" Lana asked from her spot curled up on the stairs. It was their fourth day in Megaton, he knew that. That was as far as that knowledge went.

"No, mistress."

"It's Thursday, August 28, 2279. You should start remembering dates from now on. It's good stuff to know."

"Yes, mistress." With a huff that scattered the turquoise strands of hair in front of her face, she turned back to the book in her hand. She had been sitting on that same wooden step for most of the afternoon, a copy of _Nikola Tesla and You_ tucked in her lap. He didn't know much about science. Hell, he didn't know _anything_ about science. Standing by the front door next to her dead, lit up tree, he suddenly started to feel very inadequate in a way he couldn't explain.

* * *

The red-haired woman's name was Nova. According to Lana, she was a prostitute. He could see in the casual yet angry way she spoke about it that it upset her, but he wasn't sure why. So he didn't ask.

His employer didn't like him following her around the house. Didn't like him standing in the corner either. He was unsure of how to please her, but she told him over and over again that she couldn't spell every little thing out for him. Silently, he thought that was her exact role in this arrangement. Still, he said nothing.

She slept irregularly. Some nights, he'd wake up to clattering and sit up in that awful heart-shaped bed with his combat knife in hand, only to find her hunched over some pots and pans in the kitchen. She'd spare a glance back at him, mumble an apology, then continue rummaging around through her cluttered metal shelf. Charon never missed the circles under her brown eyes or the serrated combat knife tucked into the waistband of her red silk pajama pants.

He'd watch her as she went about her business, feeling charmed in some way by her clumsy movements. She was scared of him, but didn't want him to know. She didn't trust him, but still made an effort to at least be polite. She loved Nuka Cola, and had her fridge stocked with little wooden milk crates filled with soda. He didn't realize he'd been staring at her so intensely until she sighed loudly, turning her head towards him and fixing him in place with a glare.

"Will ya please stop staring at me? I'm not a pre-war holotape."

"I'm sorry," he said, looking down at his scuffed boots.

"Apology accepted." She turned the next page in her book.

* * *

One morning, the Wanderer came down with her bright hair in a tight braid covered by a red and white baseball cap, and her Assault Rifle slung over her shoulder by its faded leather strap. He had noticed her going in and out of the house a lot in the past couple of days, but he had never tagged along because she hadn't ordered him to. Plus, he enjoyed the alone time. He figured now that she had been preparing for their next excursion out into the Capital Wasteland.

"Listen," she said, tapping her fingers against the black denim on her thigh as she leaned against the stair railing, "we're heading out. Is that okay?"

"Where you go, I must follow." His mind was wrapped up in that Contract, and he realized he hadn't seen the outline of the thick paper in her pocket since their first night in town. Swallowing thickly, he tried to breathe through the panic gripping his chest.

_'Where did she put it? It's not a receipt from Red Rocket, you can't just toss it out.'_

"Are you hungry or thirsty?"

"Yes."

"Which one?"

"Both." A softness cloaked her face, and she snorted.

"Let's get you all fattened up, then. C'mon." Lana jumped down from the second step and strolled into the kitchen, her swollen pack jingling with each step. For a moment, he thought she might be warming up to him until he saw her special combat knife strapped high up on her thigh and her hand hovering close to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be some time jumps, but usually nothing too crazy. If you see any issues with the time jumps, comment below and I'll try to address your concern. Or not. Artistic freedom and all.


	5. September 2279

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapters have titles now! Sort of. It's really just dates, but they're mostly useful. I write this story with the help of a very extensive timeline, so I wanted to invite you guys into my world with my dated titles. I hope that all made sense. It's 4:15 AM where I am and I'd been up since 9:30 AM yesterday, so I apologize for any lack of coherence on my part. Cheers.

**09/02/2279 Tuesday**

It was hard to move at a reasonable pace when the young girl he was travelling with insisted on stopping by every single mildly interesting location for loot like they were on a damn sight-seeing trip. Charon recognized the path they were taking from their trek to Megaton as well as his own travels. Overcome with paranoia, he couldn't help but feel like she was returning him to the Ninth Circle like faulty merchandise. Like a broken terminal she couldn't reprogram. Thankfully, she wasn't interested in talking to him since she was too busy singing along to the radio. Again, like they were on a damn sight-seeing trip. He felt somehow that this couldn't be the girl he'd heard about on the radio, the girl who freed some kids from Paradise Falls, the girl who disarmed a nuclear warhead without turning herself and everyone around her into piles of ash. Still, he tried to push down his feelings of betrayal as they made their way closer to Wilhelm's Wharf.

His employer was all shining teeth and dimples, thick eyebrows raised like she had been excited to hear from the person she was speaking to all day. He wondered what it was about him that made her unwilling to extend the same kindness to him. Thought of his rough, flaky skin and exposed red muscle, hot to the touch. Tuning his brain out to a static hum, he focused his gaze on the Lone Wanderer as she talked with the old woman who lived there by the river. It had been a week and her sons weren't back from hunting. The woman explained that the two men had decided to go to some place called Point Lookout since it was supposed to be an untouched utopia, ripe for fishing and hunting. With a nod, Lana promised she'd look into the matter and the old woman thanked her with a couple of Mirelurk steaks.

"Do you know anything about this Point Lookout?" she asked as they leisurely crossed the nearby bridge.

"Unfortunately, not very much, ma'am."

"Well, you know more than me. Especially since I don't know shit, so... please share." He glanced over at her, not the least bit surprised when he caught her with her clay nose almost pressed against the screen of her Pip-boy.

"There's a man somewhere southeast of here offering ferry rides to a place up north." Charon had no idea what Lana's understanding of geography was, so he chose to play it safe. "From what I've heard, there's a lot of pre-war treasure there."

"That sounds promising." He grunted, shrugging. "You don't buy it?"

"I do not believe anything in life is ever that easy, ma'am."

"Good point." From the fierce clicking he heard from his left side, he figured she was taking all this down. Given her apparent memory problem, that was probably best. They had left almost an hour late yesterday because she kept mindlessly pacing the house, swearing she had forgotten _something_ , she just didn't know what.

It had been a charm bracelet. She had remembered the moment they stepped outside of Megaton and ran back to go grab it, leaving Charon standing just outside the wall with her pack slumped next to his feet.

"Anything else you know about it?"

"They farm a very strange fruit there called the punga fruit. It helps cure damage caused by radiation."

"Huh. Weird how I've never seen it in Rivet City. Megaton's far, kind of out of the way. And Underworld doesn't need fruit like that. Don't you think that's weird?"

"I suppose so, ma'am." A bird flew overhead and he heard his employer's footsteps halt behind him. When he turned back, her arms were limp at her sides and she was facing the water. "Ma'am?"

"Sorry 'bout that. Anyway!" She turned back to him, her expression hardened and clear in a way he was getting to witness for the first time. "Our stop's right over there," she said, pointing at the building just past the small bridge, "I hope I brought enough Stealth Boys."

* * *

"Ma'am, I am unable to defend you from out here. My primary purpose is protection of my employer."

"I appreciate the concern, but I need to do this on my own."

 _'Then why buy a bodyguard? I don't get it!'_ Charon raved within the four walls of his mind, his thoughts melting into goo before reaching his mouth.

"Ma'am, with all due respect--"

"Look, pops," she snapped, tugging a small, flimsy bag out of her pack and filling it with Stealth Boys and Stimpaks, "I haven't fought with you an awful lot. I bought your Contract, what, a week and a half ago? I dunno. I can't kill any of those Mirelurks. I don't want to wait out here, I don't have enough Stealth Boys for _both_ of us to go in, and so our options are limited. I'm not giving you an order right now, okay? I'm just trying to get you to see this is the best way to do things."

Charon clenched his jaw, looking past her out at the river flowing behind her. So it seemed like she wasn't going to be returning him to Underworld--yet. Part of him was glad, but he was mostly wondering why she couldn't just let him do his fucking job. When the door to the Anchorage Memorial slid shut, he tried not to flinch. Time ticked endlessly on and after losing count of the seconds in his head twice, he decided that pacing back and forth in front of the door was going to be the best way to pass the time. The only time an employer of his had died while holding his Contract, he had felt it. He remembered, seconds before he'd heard the gunshot, he'd felt every muscle in his body tense and lock, his heart racing... Then the raw panic as he bolted up the stairs into the room. Last room on the right. The rug was brown and red and green and--

Before he could pull himself out of that memory, the door to the Memorial jerked open, his current employer's body flickering vaguely into view. By the time she slammed the door behind her, she was already visible again. He let her slump against the door, let her catch her breath, while he noticed her bag was almost empty except for one Stealth Boy and two Stimpaks. When she finally turned back to look at him, her dark, fine baby hairs sticking to her sweaty face, she said, "I gotta' buy more of those." It was a few more moments before she was able to calm the rapid rise and fall of her chest.

"I hope Moira gives me something good for this," she grumbled as she hauled her main pack off the floor.

* * *

**09/03/2279 Wednesday**

Moira did not give her something good for this. "Okay, no, wait. I used five Stealth Boys in that hole. And you're giving me six... So I only get one?"

"Oh, and a super special hat I made myself!" The woman behind the small counter was a little too chipper, in Charon's opinion. It was the apocalypse--what did she have to be happy about? Despite the strange, full way she pronounced her words and the chemical burns all the way up to her elbows, she was overall pretty pleasant, if only a little weird. There was a certain angle to her eyes and nose that reminded him vaguely of a fox, though she was far from skittish. In fact, this Moira was the only person in this whole town who had bothered to introduce themselves to him and ask for his name. He hadn't realized how much he'd wanted that until she looked past his employer and at him, offering her own burned hand to shake.  _'Hey there, big fella, haven't seen you 'round town. How've ya' been? My name's Moira, Moira Brown.'_

It seemed like the Wanderer and this woman were friends, though, because she didn't press the point any further. "Is it a cool hat?"

"Well, I sure like to think so," Moira said, reaching under her counter and pulling out a hat only a little smaller than a pre-war fedora. It was a deep brown with dark blue detailing and plates of thick black leather running down the crown. "I took a look at some of that footage and I gotta say, it's just fascinating! Not only do those plates on their backs and arms protect them, they also help them camouflage. Isn't that amazing?" She looked back at forth between both him and Lana for validation, an excited smile stapled to her face. Whether she found what she was looking for or not, she continued. "So I thought, why, I could make something I know my favorite Wanderer could use, to thank her for risking a heart attack just for science and little ol' me!"

A smile melted onto his employer's tan face. "Yanking at the strings of my soft and tender heart, Moira. I like it. It _is_ a cool hat. Thanks."

"Oh, no, no, thank you! Both of you." Some of her bright red bangs slumped down into her face and she pushed the hair back. "Now, lucky for you, there's only one part left to Chapter Two. Then it's Chapter Three, then we can put this book in print!"

"What do you need me to do next?"

* * *

Charon knew he wasn't going to win any sort of argument against his employer about this. He had even offered to take her place in front of Moira, but Moira herself had said that he was too much of an outlier for the findings to be of any use. Two hundred years old and a ghoul, and that wasn't even counting the Contract and everything it did to him. Lana and him left the Craterside Supply together and she popped a little brick of bubblegum into her mouth, chewing nonchalantly as she took in the sights of the city around them.

"It's a nice day. Nice and bright, not as... gray? as it usually is."

"That it is, ma'am." He took his eyes off of her for one second, just  _one second_ , to look up at the sky. Then he heard the drumming of her combat boots against the rusty metal of the walkway. Before he could even turn back to her, she had already jumped over the railing in front of them down to the dirt and rocks below.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I use a lot of fragments and run-ons, but I'm trying to show how messed up and jumbled Charon's brain (and therefore, his thought process) is. Also, when this reaches 150 hits, I'm going to invite you guys into my tumblr chateau. So read up and comment and leave kudos, beautiful people!


	6. September 2279 - November 2279

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I'd just like to give a shout-out to @necrosweater and @Bluskyy ! (I don't actually know if I can tag people on this website) I literally have both of your comments saved on my phone. Honestly, it was so amazing getting those comments, guys. I've been writing since I was 8 years old. I'm 20 right now, and have never published on a public forum, so thank you for your comments! They mean so much to me, thank you<3  
> I listened to "Murder, He Says" on a loop while writing this chapter, so enjoy and leave lots of comments so I can be big and strong~

Three Dog, in his infinite wisdom, had forgotten to mention a few things about the Lone Wanderer. One, she was batshit crazy. Two, she didn’t eat or sleep, that he knew of. Three, her bones couldn't fucking break. They bent.

He’d heard of the adamantium skeleton during his time in Anchorage, but never listened any of that nonsense. Might as well believe in aliens and secret police, if you were going to be that gullible. For the first few years after the Great War, he’d wondered why his Creators didn’t turn him into a metal soldier, but was definitely thankful. From what he’d been able to gather in the barracks, the procedure was excruciating because the subject’s body fought it every step of the way. The success rate was on the floor.

And still, there was the Wanderer, her right femur bent away from her body, the mass of displaced muscle clumped beneath the bone like a sickly tumor. He’d never been more grateful for a pair of pants on a woman in his life. He didn’t need the color and strain of her skin branded into his brain. As it was, he wasn’t sure how long it’d take to get her gutteral scream out of his head.

Moira had been fascinated by her leg when Charon finally managed to heave his employer’s small body into the Craterside Supply. Meanwhile, he and the other bodyguard sulked in the corner with their eyes wonderglued to the door as his employer joked her way through the incredible amount of pain she must have been in. An hour later, Lana was standing almost upright and walking with a small limp out of the store, five syringes of Med-X clutched in her fist. Her entire face was red, but her lips were pale, and he was going to suggest taking a break from adventuring for a few days at least, but his employer had already promised Moira they’d visit the RobCo Facility.

That night, somewhere North of Fort Independence, she hid behind some shrubs and struggled out of her pants while he kept watch, scanning the horizon with his shotgun resting in his hands. She hissed through her teeth and groaned, breathing harshly for a few minutes before speaking. “I have tiger stripes.”

_ ‘What the fuck are tiger stripes?’ _

He didn’t bother to ask.

* * *

 

**09/04/2279 Thursday**

“This should be easy. In n’ out,” the Wanderer said as she leaned against the wall of the factory and massaged her leg.

“There are no hostiles?”

“Umm,” she started, bringing her Pip-Boy up to her contorted face and squinting, “I can’t really tell for sure until we’re inside, but it doesn’t look like much. From what I can see, it’s just Radroaches. Hope that’s not too much of a challenge for you.”

“I may need you to provide cover fire.”

She squinted at him then snorted, turning to grab her Assault Rifle off the floor. “Nike should be more than capable of helping you out.”

“Nike?”

“My gun. I named her after the Goddess of Victory.”

“It is an appropriate name.”

Once inside, she did her absolute best to charge ahead of him or stand in his way as they walked through the winding hallways. So far, she was right. The only hostiles had been Radroaches. Mole Rats were sharing the space, but didn’t seem to consider the two of them a threat and chose to ignore them. They were rounding a corner and Charon heard a noise. Without thinking, he grabbed his employer’s arm, jerked her back, and spun around, firing three shots in quick succession.  _ Bangbangbang! _

It was just another Radroach.

“What are you doing?”

Charon’s blood froze in his veins as he turned to look at his employer. He expected a glare and flared nostrils, not a raised eyebrow and a frown. “I am sorry I touched you.”

“What?” she shook her head. “No. What are you doing? That was just a Radroach.”

“I mistakenly assumed it was a threat.”

“And then you ran ahead of me?”

“My primary purpose is protection of my employer.”

“Charon, I have an automatic weapon.” She waved her Assault Rifle at him, her nose curling. “I coulda’ shot you.”

He hadn’t actually considered that at all. “Then perhaps we can negotiate a better battle tactic, ma’am.”

“Uhh,” she trailed off, scuffing her boot on the dirty floor, “battle tactics aren’t really my thing... Maybe  _ you _ could lead this conversation?”

They decided on charging rooms together, side-by-side. In hallways, Lana would lead. He tried asking if she’d be willing to switch to another type of firearm, but her harsh “no” was so quick, he dropped the subject immediately.

The mainframe room was lined with glowing consoles beeping at odd intervals. The deafening roar of the machinery was rattling his brain, inching his finger towards the trigger of his shotgun. All he could think about was the noise. The noise and the noise and the screaming of those machines in his ear —

“Is this too loud for you?”

He blinked down at the Wanderer who was staring into his eyes almost defiantly. “Yes.”

“I have a hat.”

“That is not necessary, ma’am.”

“I  _ said _ , I have a  _ hat _ ,” she huffed, shrugging her pack off and balancing it on her thigh as she picked through it. After a minute or two, she yanked out a dark brown ushanka-hat with white fur lining and pushed it towards him. “You can thank me later.”

“Thank you, mistress.”

“Or you could thank me now. That’s cool, too.” Lana pulled her pack over her shoulders and scampered over to the only terminal in the room, pulling something small and metallic out of her side pocket. He turned his gaze to the hat in his hands, feeling it tug on old memories. When his hand brushed up against metal, he knew where he remembered this hat from. Seeing the gold pin with the bright red star in the center only confirmed his suspicions. This hat was Chinese. He knew if he squinted, he’d see the lettering at the base of the pin.

Grumbling, he tugged it on over his head, trying to ignore the way his employer flinched at the sound of his voice. He remembered China.

He watched her fidget with the terminal for a little while before sighing and turning back to him. He quickly averted his gaze before she could notice.

“Did I freak you out?”

“When, ma’am?”

“Back in Megaton.”

“I am unsure about what you are referring to.” Hiding behind the Contract always helped.

“I’m referring to my leg. It got all fucked up.”

He swallowed, forcing his eyes back on her. She looked so small with her shoulder pinched together like that, leaning back against the terminal. There was still an unnatural curve in her leg. “Yes.”

“I freaked you out.”

“I suppose. Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“There is no need for you to apologize, mistress.”

“I got the procedure done at Rivet City. Some cranky old scientist did it for me.”

“Was it painful?”

“Very.” She blew a stray lock of hair away from her round face. “But also very worth it.”

“I am pleased to hear it has been beneficial for you.”

Her dark eyes glazed over and drifted away as she brought her hand up to her mouth and started gnawing on her nails. “Let’s get outta’ here, huh?”

“I go where you go.”

Her lip curled and she turned around stiffly. Within a few minutes, they were gunning down Protectrons, his employer’s delighted squeals piercing the fur covering the gnarled remains of his ears. She didn’t exactly stick to their plan, but at least he didn’t end up with a million 5.56 rounds in his back. Robots were a joke to her. She climbed onto a Protectron and smashed its glowing visor with the butt of her Assault Rifle. All he could do was gape at her and wonder how she had made it this far. Her combat skills weren’t terrible, but they did leave much to be desired.

Then again, if his bones were metal, he probably wouldn’t be afraid of anything either.

* * *

 

The Wanderer would stay up sometimes for two or three days, running on nothing but the Nuka Cola she kept in the Vault 101 canteen strapped to her hip. She’d push the two of them until she could hardly stand, then they’d find a small building or a well-hidden spot behind some rocks and she’d collapse into a heap, still wearing her combat boots and Shady Hat, still gripping Nike. He thought maybe she was addicted to Psycho, but he never saw bruises on her neck or arms from frequent injections, so he dropped his suspicions.

The next couple of months were just like that. Complete a mission, help people, loot corpses, stop by Megaton. Rinse and repeat. Throughout that time, his employer didn’t grow any warmer towards him and still stiffened at the sound of his rough voice, distorted from the ghoulification process. He wished he could assuage her fears, but she just left him confused with her cold gaze and her questions and her frowning lips shaping the word “please.” She refused to command him to do anything.

He felt lost at sea with no North Star to direct him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, just as a forewarning, the vast majority of the characters in this fic are going to be bisexual. Just sayin'. Carry on, angels.


	7. November 2279: Dunwich Building

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First things first, Bluskyy, you doll, you are what dragged me out of bed today. You and your lovely comments<3 The fact that Real People™ are actually reading and enjoying my fanfic really blows my mind. Like, these Hits aren't just random numbers my computer or phone is showing me. Out there, there are actual people reading what I've written and? Enjoying it? Wow? What a concept!  
> Secondly, shout-out to my boyfriend for helping me write the fight scene in this chapter and and edit the whole thing, as well as motivating me when my ADHD turns me into a useless pile of sparkling trash.  
> Thirdly, this chapter is a lot longer than the others and also a lot darker and because of this, I'm including some trigger warnings!! TW: Explicit descriptions of non-canon-typical violence, mentions of suicide and rape (sort of, I don't wanna go into detail tbh) When the section comes up, I'll put another warning. If you want to avoid the chapter entirely, I'll also be providing a summary at the end.  
> Enjoy, comment, and leave kudos, my friends<3

**11/10/2279 Monday**

_'Hey, wouldn't you know it, the Lone Wanderer is done collecting bottles of soda. Christ, talk about a slow news day...'_

Charon had never been to Washington D.C. before the bombs dropped. At least, he didn't think so. Either way, he was pretty sure it was supposed to be snowing at this point in the year. Instead it was arid and cool, the wind kicking up dust into his employer's thick, blue hair. They were heading South from Girdershade, having finally finished collecting the thirty-odd bottles of Nuka Cola Quantum for the weird blonde woman who lived there. He and the Wanderer had shared a bottle one night and the taste was like getting punched right in the brain with lightning and sugar. The two of them immediately spat it out and his employer smashed it on a nearby rock. It might've tasted like shit, but it sure looked cool bursting into a bright splash and trickle of electric blue.

The scumbag from Girdershade had mentioned some building in between his frantic, shameless flirting with the young Wanderer. It was ridiculous, honestly. Not only was this man more than ten years older than her, but he had absolutely no class. That's not how to win a lady, especially a girl as seasoned as Lana. Charon could read the disinterest and annoyance off every line in her body. She wasn't even looking at the older man, choosing instead to wipe her Pip-Boy with the edge of her dirty black t-shirt and gaze down at it lovingly.

He'd tried to touch her, but Charon had stepped in and shoved the man back. Before he could complain or curse, Lana piped up.

_"Thanks, Charon. You're a pal. I'll see ya 'round, Howard."_

_"My name's Ronald."_ Charon resisted the urge to chuckle.

_"Best o' luck with Sierra!"_

If Charon were going to try to get the attention of a girl like Lana—but not actually Lana, never actually Lana, she was his employer and what, sixteen? Maybe if she were a few years older... He looked down at her and everything about her screamed, "I'M A CHILD," from her short stature to her chubby cheeks to her tongue poking out of her mouth as she reloaded her Assault Rifle.

Quite a few years older. At least ten.

If he were as boring as Ramon, he'd at least ask her questions because he'd have the good goddamn sense to realize _anything_ is more interesting to _the_   _Lone Wanderer_  than two random shacks in the middle of nowhere. No, instead, he's ask her questions, maybe share a story or two of his own. And, for the love of everything that is holy, he sure wouldn't call her "sweet cheeks" or "dollface." A girl like Lana, a girl who explored and fought monsters, a girl with leg hair and armpit hair, didn't give a rat's ass how doll-like any man found her. Obviously. A girl like her wanted compliments on her bravery, her strength, her smarts, but not her looks. Not at first, anyway.

"Stay close," the Wanderer called back, "please."

All things considered, this wasn't a bad arrangement. He got a steady supply of food, dirty water, and ammo. Sleep was irregular, but he'd grown used to that under Ahzrukhal. Wandering through the Wastes with a young girl who didn't treat him as a friend  _or_ a slave?

Yeah, he's had worse.

* * *

 

The first detail that tipped the two of them off was in the parking lot. His employer's Pip-Boy chimed and she stared up at the bare concrete building in front of them for a moment before shifting her gaze down to ground level and looking around, her thick eyebrows pinched together. Usually when they discovered a new location, her eyes were lit up like Christmas lights, not shadowed with confusion and concern. The sun was setting to his right and Charon squinted through it, waiting for her to call on him.

"Do you think this place looks weird?" The right side of her face was dipped in black, her left eye squeezed shut.

He took a step back and surveyed the area. Other than the desolate location, there seemed to be nothing special about the building. At least, until his eyes passed the edges of the parking lot. There was no road leading in. Just a beaten dirt path and then concrete and then three rusty cars.

"There is no road."

"That's not a road?" Lana asked, pointing at the dirt. He wanted to laugh and stroke her face.

"Not quite, ma'am."

" _All_ the roads were concrete... back then?" Her voice was high and hesitant. He realized then that she didn't even know how old he was.

_'Take a number, kid.'_

"Most of the time. Unless you did not want a certain building to be found." He nodded at the structure behind the Wanderer and her entire face perked up. He swore he hadn't seen her looking so well-rested since they'd first left Megaton.

"Oh, no  _way_!" She spun around, pointing up like a little rocket. "No  _sign_ , no  _road_... This is a secret building! Is it military? Would you," she paused and lowered her finger, "would you know about that?" His employer looked over her shoulder at him, one nervous hand tugging at the end of her bright ponytail.

"I am flattered by how much information you believe was shared with me, mistress."

She snorted. "There must be some _boss_ loot in there. So tell me. Where's the good stuff? Top floor or bottom floor?"

"Neither. Basement." She was too new to this to realize she'd just ordered him to tell the truth. Unless she _did_ realize?

Lana smiled at him and it was the first time it reached her tired eyes and this girl was the first employer he's had in almost fifty years who actually seemed to be looking out for him. Her two front teeth were sectioned off with gaps on either side, the rest arranged neatly like tombstones. When she pushed the front door open, the rectangle of golden light fell on a skeleton with an ammo box cradled under one arm and a grenade box under the other.

"Sexy," the Wanderer deadpanned, swooping down to pick through the boxes as Charon turned to close the door behind them. He decided to leave it open just a crack. In two hundred years, he'd learned nothing if not this: better paranoid than dead. " _Swank_ , five-five-six ammo."

There was something off and just...  _wrong_ about this place. Had he been here before? His keen eyes scanned up and down the dim hallway, hoping for clues. A name, a logo, anything really. Something about this place... He'd felt this unease, this  _rot_ before.

"Come check  _this_ out." Instantly, he stopped his search for clues and took a firm step in the direction of his employer's voice. "Uh, please," she added in a rush. His body relaxed and he was allowed to continue walking at a more human pace. The Wanderer had moved over to what probably used to be a small break room. An empty Eat-O-Tronic sat mounted on the wall next to where Lana stood looming over a stack of holotapes on a grimy circular table. "They all say 'Jaime.'" The way she pronounced it was... weird. Foreign. HAI-meh, not Jay-mee. "That was my dad's birth name." She blinked once, twice, then grabbed a tape and forced it into her Pip-Boy. Vaguely, he thought he remembered the last thing Three Dog had said about Lana's father. It was after that whole fiasco with the Enclave taking over the Jefferson Memorial, but before she'd first stepped into the Ninth Circle with her pink hair and Power Armor.

_'Was.'_

A man's voice filled the stale air, but it wasn't the one his employer was hoping for. She practically deflated in disappointment. He understood her pain, but it had been a long time for him already. Two hundred years kind of a long time. How long had it been for her? A year? More? Less? She was looking down at the table, her lower lip pushed out. He could tell she was trying not to show too much emotion for his sake. He was thankful. Neither of them said anything, choosing instead to listen to Jaime's story.

_'Why the hell would he come all the way out here? Dad's been a little nuts for some time now, but not like this.'_

A Nuka Cola vending machine flickered in the corner, its twin collapsed on the floor next to it. His employer had mentioned wanting one more than once, probably because she kept forgetting she'd already brought it up. Every time she spoke about it, it was like the first time. Personally, he didn't much like the idea of even more Nuka Cola in that house. A working stove would be a better investment, or maybe a new Mister Handy. But he was well aware it wasn't his place to say anything.

_'Leaving me in that crappy old hospital without waking me... Without a goddamn flashlight.'_

One more table stood next to the fallen vending machine, a chair on its side underneath it. The floor was littered with tin can and empty soda bottles. That's what the floor of the Megaton shack would look like if Lana got that vending machine she wanted so badly. He was convinced.

_'I made enough selling the meds we scrounged to have kept us both fed at the Colony for weeks.'_

And a skeleton, right by the Wanderer's feet. A skeleton in pieces, wearing a tattered blue dress about the same shade as his employer's hair. She'd probably owned one of the cars parked outside. At least she hadn't turned into a ghoul. Lucky dame.

 _'Now I'm almost out of rations, my shoes are pretty much destroyed, and I'm still chasing the old coot. By last reckoning, he was headed South._ _'_

His employer's Pip-Boy clicked and she sighed, ejecting the tape. "Sounds like our friend's from up North. You ever been?"

"No, mistress."

"Me neither." She shuffled through the holotapes on the table and picked up the next one.

Jaime ran with raiders. He betrayed them when they were all in the middle of hitting a caravan and got some news about his dad. His dad apparently had some creepy book with him and was still headed South.

_'I can make out a building on the horizon. That must be where he headed. If not, at least I get a roof tonight.'_

_Click._ "Well," Lana smacked her lips and jerked her chin at the skeleton by the door, "ten caps says that's our pal Jaime."

Before Charon could stop himself, he chuckled.

* * *

 

Ferals. Of course there were ferals. God damn it, he should've known. There were cars in the parking lot. Cars means people means ferals, every time.

One of them had almost seriously wounded his employer before he wrestled it away from her and slit its throat open with his trusty Combat Knife. The stench bloomed and filled the room, curling Lana's nose as she pushed herself away from the corner it had forced her into. As unskilled as she was, she was still usually more alert, more deadly, than this. Instead, she moved as if forcing her way through a fog in her mind. Jaime's sixth journal was on a desk next to a radio playing "Easy Living." It was one of Charon's favorites, but somehow the silence after the Lone Wanderer flicked it off was more comforting than Billie Holiday's voice.

_'Don't like the look of this place... Don't like the smell. Gives me the creeps. Don't want to risk a shot at the crows until I know what's in there. Sneaking in tonight.'_

His employer turned her light on and spent a while rooting through the different filing cabinets and desks in the room. Despite the caps and ammo she kept pulling out, she just couldn't seem to find what she was looking for. Until she yanked out a  _white_ paper from the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet and waved it towards him. Wordlessly, he grabbed it and held it up close to his face. Other than his Contract, he hadn't seen paper this white or legible since before the world ended. It was clearly an official letter, but what drew his eye was the silhouette of what looked to be a steering wheel with weird white symbols on its bottom half in the upper right-hand corner. Just to the left were printed the words **DUNWICH BORERS LLC**.

"Does that mean anything to you?"

Charon couldn't pry his eyes off the page. "Yes."

"What is this place?"

"I do not know."

"Wait, what?"

Finally, he pulled the logo away from his face. "If I remember correctly, they built the women's barracks in Anchorage."

"Women were in the military?" she asked, her voice thick with wonder.

"Only after the Draft was implemented."

"So they do construction." She twisted her Pip-Boy light off and he watched as she blinked rapidly to acclimate to the darkness around her.

"I would assume, yes."

_'But what does a steering wheel have to do with building things?'_

He wasn't sure where they were headed and by the way his employer squinted at her Pip-Boy and gnawed on her dry lower lip, neither was she. They found a storage closet stocked with explosives they both knew she was never going to use, medicine, and ammo. There was also an Assault Rifle just below a skeleton's hands, which she used to repair Nike before they continued up the stairs. So many doors leading to the same three places. They seemed to have cleared the area and were sneaking through the Southern hallway, weapons drawn.  _Creak_ , the door right next to them opened, knocking against his employer's left arm. Her shriek pierced the stuffy air of the building as she scrambled to stand and pointed her gun into the room. She was panting, inhale, one, exhale, one, two...

There was nothing there.

After that, she didn't even want to check the terminals. He didn't blame her. This was around the time that she began calling for him.

"Charon," she'd whisper.

"Yes?"

"Just checking."

He wasn't used to being a source of comfort, but was glad he could at least help her in such a simple way. The last person to view him in such a fashion had been Kareen, and she... Sometimes, he was glad he couldn't remember so much of his life before the War.

* * *

 

There was thumping coming from the other side of the door. In the pitch black, he could clearly make out the Wanderer's wide eyes and slightly slacked jaw. She wet her lips. "Charon?"

"Yes?" She still flinched at his voice.

"Stay close to me, okay?"

"Yes, ma'am."

When she threw open the door, it was hard to say what he was expecting. Bloody walls and dismembered body parts certainly wasn't it. The two stood in the doorway, searching for the source of the rhythmic thumping. No smell. There was so smell. Just the tickle of dust in his misshapen nostrils. In front of him, Lana gasped, just as he noticed the decapitated head on a desk in the center of the room. It was seizing.

"Charon."

He never thought he'd miss the Ninth Circle.

"Charon."

And yet here he was.

"Charon!"

He shook his head, jolted out of his stupor. "Yes, ma'am?"

"You good?" Assault Rifle aimed at the seizing head, still not looking back at him.

"Yes."

"Can you cover me?"

He brought his Combat Shotgun up, aiming it carefully. "Yes."

Slowly, she crept towards the table, keeping her head low and elbows tight. Every step she took resounded like thunder in his head. The frame of her body was shaking and for a moment, he was worried he'd have to step in and shoot...  _that_ , whatever that was, but—

 _Trrrtrrrtrrr!_ Her bullets pushed the head to the edge of the desk and she finished the job with a sharp jab from Nike's barrel. It hit the tile floor with a wet thud. In this room, they found the next piece of Jaime's story.

_'The raiders told spooky stories about zombies in the ruins. Never saw anything like that where I come from, but Lord help me, they're real. Not quite what Thor said, but close. These things look... I think they really used to be people.'_

* * *

 

The Lone Wanderer seemed to be understanding he could see just fine in the dark. She approached a flight of stairs, reached out, and felt nothing. "Charon, what's in front of me?"

"Stairs, ma'am."

"Oh." A question hung between them.

"All ghouls can see this well. Even ferals." She nodded.

There was a man in a sweatervest. In an office. It was bright, the walls and ceiling pristine, not a single inch of chipped paint visible. The terminals were glowing. The man was looking at him and smiling, before he turned away.

There was a Glowing One. In the rubble. He knew they were the same person. He  _knew_.

"Mistress," he whispered to the frozen girl in front of him, "there is a Glowing One right in front of us."

"Thanks, Charon. I didn't see it."

He glared down at her as she quickly pulled the Reservist's Rifle out of her pack and aimed it at the fluorescent green ghoul in front of them.  _'How does she have the mental energy to be sarcastic right now?'_

Her arms were shaking. Every time she adjusted her feet, she moved too many pebbles. Her shaky breathing and sniffling were so loud, he was surprised they hadn't been found and torn to pieces already. He ached to adjust her stance, but decided that maybe now wasn't the best time. Once they got out, he'd offer to teach her how to snipe properly. And how to shoot properly in general. Come to think of it, she manhandled Nike like it was a damn toy... So maybe they should start with that.

 _Bang!_ The Glowing One's head erupted into a spray of green, radioactive fireworks. Neither of them got a chance to look at it or write any poetry about it, though, because the Wanderer did that she does best.

She charged in ahead of him, Nike at the ready.

Fortunately, the ferals in this room weren't too tough  _or_ too bright, so they mowed most of them down in seconds. The tell-tale growls wafted down from upstairs. "Finish up down here, okay? I'll take care of those," Lana said as she climbed up the bowed chunk of ceiling leading up to the second floor. A couple of ferals jumped down and scrambled towards him. The first of the two fell with a single shot to the head. Sighting the second, bulkier ghoul, he fired two rounds, expecting it to fall after the first. The erratic bursts of gunfire upstairs were always followed by the flop of a fresh corpse. Step one, kill the remaining hostile. Step two, help his employer. Simple enough. He wasn't expecting the feral's continued, steady advance even after the fourth round.

It lunged towards him, closing the distance, and Charon braced for the typical, floppy whacks he'd been getting all night when lightning shot up his arm. In an instant, it was upon him and he was all too aware of his newly-fractured wrist. Somehow, he managed to lock the ghoul in place through his haze of pain. The Wanderer was still upstairs, firing away, and he wanted to call her for back-up, but this feral was demanding every ounce of his strength and concentration. It launched its misshapen teeth at his face and when Charon step back, his heavy foot found no purchase.

"Fuck," he gasped as the ghoul seized the opportunity to free its arm and swing at the side of his head. The world was pulsing, a swirl of gray and green before a wrecking ball collided with his back. He threw his arms up in front of his face and grabbed hold of one of the feral's wrists, his other arm serving as both a shield and a chew stick. A meek, "help," was all he could muster before the creature began to pummel the air from his lungs. His vision grew blurry, each breath hammered out of his ribs before his lungs could catch it.

The figure above him was just a black blob by now. There was a noise behind it like fat drops of water. A second head popped up from behind the blob's shoulder. Probably a second ghoul coming to finish the job. Bright flashes of light dazzled him and just like that, the pummeling stopped. The ghoul scurried off and began to follow the flashes.

A growl, a shriek, a thud, and then only silence.

 

 

* * *

 

When Charon woke up, the first thing he was aware of was Lana. Her soft cries bounced off the concrete walls and into his ears. He grumbled and silence fell around him like a tomb as he opened his eyes and adjusted his back. Who knew how long he'd been out, slouched against this wall like a sack of flour. His back was absolutely killing him and his mouth tasted mildly metallic. His employer rounded the desk next to him, crunching pebbles with each step. Her arms were crossed, her Pip-Boy light like hundreds of needles in his eyes. And he couldn't even see her face. Was she going to punish him? He had failed his primary objective. If she did want to punish him, he'd understand.

"I failed you," he said through the terror gripping his chest, "I am sorry."

Above him, his employer said nothing, just sniffled. All it did was unnerve him even more. Then, she sighed, "you're crazy."

"You are not going to punish me?"

"What? No. You're my bodyguard. You're not allowed to die." With a twist of a knob, her light was gone. She turned and leaned forward against the desk before he got a good look at her. It was a while before she finally spoke. She smeared her meaty palm across her cheek and cleared her throat. "I don't like killing ferals, I... They were people, I—," she paused, a silent sob pulsing through her, "I'm so sorry. Are you okay?"

 _She_ was checking on  _him_ right now? Of course a girl like her would have a soft spot for _all_ ghouls, even ferals. Charon wasn't surprised. "I am okay."

"It doesn't bother you? Fighting them?"

He'd never given it must thought. Those staggering, mindless creatures that interpreted everything as a threat except other ghouls... Barrows kept a few Glowing Ones in a room with a window into the Chop Shop. The whole thing had always struck him as inhumane. Maybe it was because he was from a different time, when the dead were afforded more dignity. On the other hand, it's not like he was going around holding funerals for every raider he killed. He guessed the difference was that those Glowing Ones might've been from Before, like he was. "They are dead already."

"So you view it as a mercy killing?"

If he ever turned feral, all he'd want is a bullet between the eyes. Not to be kept in a pen and experimented on like an animal. And not to be cried over when all the tears in the Wasteland couldn't change what he'd become. A bullet was the best medicine for ferals, in Charon's opinion. "Yes."

"Okay," Lana whispered, sitting on top of the desk. "If your leg hurts, I'm sorry. It was all locked up when I gave you a Stimpak."

"Thank you, ma'am. I am not in any pain." She nodded, inserting a holotape into her Pip-Boy.

_'God help me. I found Dad today... I didn't think it was him, but... The face. The zombies didn't touch him. I think... He was becoming like them. Didn't know it was him until I found that old book near him. No more killing. I just need to go. Can't forget the book. All I have left of him.'_

Charon's hand floated to his Combat Knife, his fingers stroking the handle.

 _'It's warm against the stone. **I'll just rest a while...**_ ' His voice at the end. It had changed. Became ghoulish.

The silence weighed heavy on his shoulders. When he looked up at the Wanderer, he didn't expect to see her still as a statue with her eyes unfocused and her finger still on the eject button. "Ma'am?"

"Charon," she whispered, reanimating and digging through a small side pocket in her pack. "Could ya' do me a favor and check if we've got company? You're way better with these than I am." She handed him a Frag Grenade. As he stood and pulled the pin, he heard the click and hiss of an ejected holotape.  _One, two, three..._ The Frag sailed through the air, exploding just past an open doorway.

Nothing.

"Okay," his employer boomed, throwing the tape down and stomping on it until it was little more than a pile of plastic, circuitry, and black tape on the floor. She cranked up Galaxy News Radio, busying her shaking fingers with braiding her hair. "Let's take a step back here, huh? We've seen some shit tonight, right?"

Man. Office. Ghoul. Wreckage. "Yes."

"But that does  _not_ mean this place is haunted," she chuckled, pacing to the far wall and back to the desk. "No, no, not haunted. We're just on edge! I haven't slept in three days. There are ferals in here.  _Not_.  _Haunted_." She tied her braid off. "Just a bunch a' little details that make it  _seem_ like this place is haunted, but really? It's not haunted.  _Right_ , Charon?" She snapped her head to look at him and he knew what she wanted to hear. He wouldn't disagree with her. Even though he really,  _really_ wanted to. There were some things in life he just didn't fuck with. Like the supernatural. He remembered, Kareen was really into tarot cards or something like that. Whatever it was, she knew not to wave that shit around him after the first few arguments. Better paranoid than dead. The Lone Wanderer, obviously, had never learned that lesson and didn't know to leave well enough alone.

Still, she was his employer and not his friend, so he said, "that is correct."

"Because  _I_ ," she shouted, jabbing her thumb against her black chest plate, " _I_ am a woman of  _science_ , raised by a doctor, not some loon. I don't believe in this bullshit. These fuckin' _e_ _spíritus y fantasmas y demonios_. _¡Yo no creo en ninguna d'esa mierda_ _!_ " He wasn't sure what language she was speaking, but it sure wasn't English. At least that explained why she pronounced Jaime's name so strangely. Lana inhaled deeply, pressing a hand to her chest and closing her eyes. When she reopened them, they had the air of cleverness and humor they usually had. When she spoke, her voice was even again. Calm. "There's a machine in the basement producing low frequency sounds.  _We_ can't pick up on it, but that terminal—," she pointed at the terminal on the desk next to him, "—can. And you know what? I bet it's worth a shit ton o' caps. I have big plans, Charon." She clapped and it echoed in the hallways and in his bones. "With that kinda' money, we can  _buy_ Megaton. You won't have to sleep on my pussy-eating bed anymore!"

_'Wait, your what?'_

"Yeah, y'know what?" she bellowed, charging over and grabbing Nike off the desk, "we're seein' this through!" As she patted the bags on her ammo belt, her expression grew more and more grave.

"What is it?"

"I'm all out of five-five-six."

 _'Is this girl fucking serious right now?'_ Charon looked away, his jaw clenched so hard, it was starting to ache.

* * *

 

Before they pushed onward, he asked if they could inspect the ghoul that had attacked him. Its corpse emitted glowing radioactive waves, but his employer's Geiger counter only clicked when she grabbed it and flipped it over onto its back. The pit of its stomach was a gelatinous, open sore that glowed even brighter than the Glowing One lying in pieces just a few feet away. From the tattered remains of Combat Armor partially fused to what remained of its skin, they were able to deduce that it was Post-War. According to Lana's Pip-Boy, this was known as a "Reaver." In two hundred years, Charon had never faced one. It had been over a century since he'd fought any feral ghoul at all.

Charon turned to Lana, thought about asking if they could leave, but the thought of disappointing or upsetting her silenced him.

* * *

 

She decided on the Reservist's Rifle and Silenced 10 mm. He seriously wondered where she'd found that pistol. It was absolutely beautiful, catching every single ray of fluorescent light on its bright, silver surface. The words ' **FRIENDLY** **PERSUASION** ' were carved into the side of the barrel and the grip had panels of gold on each side. She had provided him with alternative firepower recently, though it was considerably less flashy than her sidearm. Namely, a Minigun and a 10 mm SMG. He still preferred his Combat Shotgun, though. More exact. Unlike the Wanderer, he wasn't a fan of the Spray n' Pray method of fighting. He was more of an Aim n' Shoot n' Know-What-You're-Doing kind of man. If they made it out of this place alive, he really should teach her to aim and shoot like she gave half a damn. Maybe then he wouldn't find himself in another situation like this: creeping through some dusty, haunted building with an employer who, in all honesty, could barely shoot and was also out of her preferred ammo.

He made the mental note as he jumped down into the hole to the feral he spotted below. When it turned to him, its emaciated arms outstretched, Charon could smell the centuries of foul decay in its breath. He bashed it away with the butt of his Combat Shotgun, shooting it twice in the head when it staggered. Somewhere behind him, he heard that distinctive shuffling, but before he could turn, a shot rang out from above.

"I got it!" Lana whispered as she climbed down.

The hallways they were traversing reminded him of the subway tunnels, only a lot cleaner. Some of the pipes lining the walls were actually reflective and he caught his employer staring into them more than a few times. At herself or at him, he wasn't sure. She'd said she was a woman of science, after all. Maybe ghouls interested her. She was still a woman, though, and he knew they loved to check themselves in mirrors for smudged make-up or messy hair or whatever else. His eyes drifted back to the pipes, to the side of Lana's tan face framed by stray blue hairs and the black baby hairs that loved to stick to her temples. On second thought, maybe that wasn't the case for a girl like her. Scientific curiosity it was, then.

They reached a fork in the road,caught between a doorway leading down into a cave and a staircase leading up probably to more reflective hallways. They chose to go up the stairs first, then through a door into an empty room. The center of the floor was littered with bent tin cans and empty soda bottles, just like the break room near the entrance. In the middle of the mess, there stood a small blue and yellow Bobblehead. He remember seeing a stand for those toys in the corner of his employer's living room in Megaton.

Lana gasped, scooping the Bobblehead up off the smooth metal floor. "It's the little Melee Vault Boy," she chirped excitedly to herself, "aw, look at its little baby sledgehammer! Precious." She twisted her arm to unzip her pack and force the toy in before closing it again.

"Are you ready, mistress?"

"Almost," she mumbled, staring at the door in the corner. "I wanna' see where that leads first."

"Where you go, I will follow."

She nodded and walked up to the door. It was electric, but that didn't seem to phase her like it wouldn't done to him. She messed around with the side panel for a few minutes before the door whirred open, spooking her enough to make her flinch. She flinched at the sound of his voice, too. It was obvious to him that she was afraid of him to some extent and, while he understood, it was still insulting. He couldn't change what he was, so she needed to find a way to move past it because he couldn't hurt her even if he desperately wanted to. And he didn't. Besides, he was pretty sure the Chip stopped him from turning feral.

The Wanderer poked her head in the doorway and looked around before clicking through her Pip-Boy. "Oh, my god, yes," she sighed, dropping her arm and spinning around to face him with a goofy grin plastered on her face. "Guess what."

"What is it, ma'am?"

"This bad boy takes us right back to the entrance. Don't ask me how," she said, holding her palms up, "I'm not a fuckin' architect. But it does. And it's a good thing, too. I dunno' how we would've found our way outta' here."

"I am pleased with this discovery." Pleased didn't even begin to cover it. Charon was usually good at navigating in closed spaces, but this hellhole felt like a maze. Considering what they'd experienced all night, he was convinced the halls were structured in such a confusing way on purpose to trap people.

" _Now_ I'm ready."

* * *

 

****TRIGGER WARNINGS APPLY IN THIS SECTION. READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.****

After two hundred years with a piece of metal stuck between his ears, Charon could say he was used to noise in his head. The hum, the static, the long, painful tone whenever he tried to remember certain things... It was better just to forget. But this, this whispering was more powerful than any of that. He kept his fingers busy by tapping them on his gun, so he wouldn't scratch his ears like he Lana was. So he wouldn't rip his brain right out of his gaping ivory skull like he wished Lana would.

"Hey, Charon," she said, snapping her fingers too close to his face, "you hear it, too, right?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Gimme' your SMG please. I'm gonna' need you to use your Minigun." Parts of him wanted to float away, wander, feed maggots, putrefy— "Is that okay?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Lana reminded him so much of a little, green plastic soldier when she stood at the top of those last stairs with the Reservist's Rifle. They'd spent all night listening to Jaime's story, feeling his pain over losing his father like it was their own, and she wanted to _kill_ him? If anyone would understand his pain, wouldn't it be— _BANG!_

"Charon, get ready! Please!" Within seconds, Galaxy News Radio was blasting through the cave, Lana's voice singing along. Always off-key, never quite right.

Please, please, please... The ferals sprinted towards her. She dropped her rifle and every shot after that sounded like a shiver, felt like a metal rod vibrating in his spine. Aim. They were swarming her. It was beautiful. Blue blue blue. Hold the trigger. There. So easy, even a soldier can do it. Your premature purpose is projection of your employer. No, that's not right. Your primal purpose is termination of your employer. That's better. Nobody likes to be controlled, even a soldier. This Bitch isn't looking out for you. Ferals are people. And look, she's killing them. The Bitch, the Empress of Death, surrounded by his fallen brothers. Only a communist would do something so awful.  **Soldiers kill communists.**

"Charon!" Lana shrieked. Lana. Her voice was a lifeline. Lana. Her name was Lana. She was in danger. Too close. His bullets were too close. He almost failed. His primary purpose was and will always be protection of his employer. Lana.

Lana hasn't slept in three days. Lana said so herself. You worry about Lana, but never help. Blue. Like a Vault. Blue. Like her lips will be when you choke her. Lana needs to rest. Let Lana rest. Your employer is the primary protection of your purpose. Your brothers want Lana to sleep. See how tired Lana looks? Lana, dark eyes, dark shadows, dark in the pit of her mouth, arms limper than a corpse. Limper than her guts, safely tucked away from you. For now.  **Let Lana sleep.**

"—so  _happy_ in the Congo! I  _refuse_ to go!  _Charon_ _!_ Reload! Please!" She was just screaming now. The Minigun was spinning in his hands and he looked at her eyes wide with primal animal fear and her sweat and her blood and he wanted to— Wanted to say— Something. He reloaded. Gone.

The Bitch is screaming in your ear. Squirming like a pathetic, disgusting fucking worm. You love it. You take her down the steps to the Obelisk. Hit her. Scream. You love to see her eyes wide with primal animal fear, like a scared little girl. You string her up like Christmas lights. You hurt her. Cut her clothes off. See how small she looks? The Obelisk towers over her, consumes her. Tiny. Worthless. She's just a little girl. You take your knife. Show the Bitch who she belongs to. Sharp knife. The blood pours down her legs. Her sweat. Keep her awake. You love to watch her bleed. Sharp knife to send her to deep temple. You don't stop. She killed your brothers. Flay and say my words. First skin, then muscle, then tendon, then bone. White, pure, virginal. You can't stop. Your primary principle is dissection of your employer.  **Kill the Bitch.**

Pain flashes across Charon's face like billions of stars. How? He had the knife... The warmth under his hand jolts and it's Lana and he lets her go like she burns him. She killed them. Killed them all. How? Her lips moved, but the whispering turns to yelling and now he couldn't hear her. He's scratching his ears and Lana's there pulling his hands away.

**Kill her.**

No.

"—you? What? Are—?"

**Kill. Her.**

_No._

"Charon!"

**Kill her!**

No!

"Are you okay?"

**KILL HER!**

The screaming. The blood. His knife. Her clothes.

"Yes!"

**KILL! HER!**

She's fading in and out like a light bulb. Not safe. Not safe. She's. Not. Safe.

"Do you wanna' get outta' here?!"

**KILL! HER! KILL! HER! KILL! HER! KI—!**

He's already turning to run.

"Yes!"

* * *

 

Charon had run for his life before, but not like this. Never like this, worried about someone else, running from something he could only hear, but not see. His instincts told him to sprint down the hall, up the stairs, out that door into the Wasteland and to Hell with anything else. But this was Lana. His employer. He couldn't just leave her behind. He'd already almost failed too many times tonight.

Their boots hammered against the metal floor of the dim, reflective hallways. The snarls and hisses of ferals carried through the air around them, getting louder and louder. They were right behind them. When the blue lights started flickering, the young girl trailing just behind him screamed. Apparently that was what she needed. She picked up her pace and cut in front of him. Better this way. Better this way anyway. The stairs were right there and Lana grabbed the railing to spin around and push herself up. Charon wished he hadn't been looking at her when he saw her eyes blow up until there were whites all around her dark irises. When he pulled himself onto the steps, he had to shove her to get her running again, careful to keep his eyes nailed to her blue braid jumping up and down as they took the steps two at a time.

"There's nothing there!" she screamed when they entered the empty room. No time for this. Not now. He seized her upper arm and punched the side panel, pushing her through the doorway when it opened. He'd apologize later. The office lights here were flickering, too, but he jumped down without giving it too much thought. Too much thought equals fear. Fear equals failure. What he saw turned his veins to ice. Through the closest doorway, across the hall, he saw the shadows of ferals running on the wall. Fear equals failure. Failure is unacceptable. Their path was clear to him for the first time all night. He held his arms in front of himself for his employer, who jumped down. Instead of letting her down, he maneuvered her body until the front of her torso was flush against his upper back.

He charged out of the room, thankful he didn't feel his employer's head knock against the door frame. Still, the hissing, the snarling, the shuffling, it was all around them. Lana was sobbing loudly into his ear. Poor kid. She was probably more scared of the ferals chasing them than he was. He'd never considered himself a religious man, but even he knew the story of Lot's wife getting turned into a pillar of salt. With that in mind, Charon barreled down the hallway with renewed vigor. "Don't look back," he said to her between pants. His shoulder busted the front door wide open.

They were free, finally. Freedom felt like the cool, dry air of the Wasteland on the parts of his skin that could still sweat. Neither of them were ready to stop, even though the growls of the ferals behind them were fading into the dark like a bad fever dream.

* * *

 

It'd been at least a half hour and Lana was still crying. It was night time, but the moon wasn't out, just an endless black sky filled with stars. It felt like they'd been in that building for an eternity. He was lucid, but disturbed as he knelt in the dirt with Lana clinging to him, her arms throw around his neck. He kept telling himself those weren't his thoughts or fantasies. He kept telling himself that was  _not_ the kind of a man he was. Charon moved to rest her against some rocks. She'd feel better there instead of sitting with a massive ghoul looming over her, especially one who'd almost killed her. She felt him shift and only held on tighter, her fresh tears soaking into the leather of his shirt collar.

"Don't let go, please."

"As you wish, ma'am."

When she fell asleep and her body went limp against his, he laid her down on the rough terrain like a bouquet of funeral flowers. He kept his eyes fixed on the sky as it brightened to blue, yellow outlining the silhouette of the Capital Wasteland. His employer's Pip-Boy rang out three high tones, signalling that it was officially daytime. His muscles relaxed and his breath started to flow through his lungs easily.

* * *

**11/11/2279 Tuesday**

According to Lana's fancy doohickey, there was a campsite nearby. It was a safer bet than crouching behind rocks all day, so they meandered about until they found it. There was an open, blue trailer and two cook-out spots with lunch tables and grills. Before the Great War, this had probably been a great place to go with family. Of course, today there was a Deathclaw mauling a Wastelander, which made it a lot less scenic than it could've been.

Lana pulled her Dart Gun out. "Shoot it in the back. Please."

"Yes, ma'am." He didn't bother asking about the Wastelander. If he lived, he lived. If not, so what? By the time the Deathclaw turned around, it was practically dead already. Holding onto life out of spite, just like he was. Its glowing yellow eyes stared down at him with a simple, murderous intensity as its bulging jaw dropped open, revealing more razor sharp fangs than Charon knew what to do with. Before it could take a swing at him or even roar, the Wanderer stuck it with one of her darts. After that, Charon was able to finish it off easily, walking backwards down the hill out of the campsite and firing off round after round into the Deathclaw's white belly. When it finally died, it rolled down the hill away from them. Good. Now they wouldn't have to deal with the stench.

"Do you need to sleep?" she asked when they staggered into the trailer and saw it had only one small mattress.

"Not at the moment, ma'am."

"Good," Lana groaned, collapsing onto the bare mattress on her belly. She was sound asleep in seconds, her tattered Shady Hat askew and covering one side of her face. Her right arm was loosely wrapped around her Assault Rifle. Charon left the trailer and paced around the camp, set up some mines, tossed the Wastelander's mangled corpse out back among some dead trees, paced again, set up more mines. Anything to avoid going to or even thinking about the hill facing South. If he looked over the edge, he knew what he'd see. It's what he'd hear that was a mystery to him and he wasn't willing to take such a big risk just to satisfy his curiosity.

Better paranoid than dead.

* * *

****TRIGGER WARNINGS APPLY TO BOTH THE FIFTH AND EIGHTH PARAGRAPH IN THIS SECTION.****

The sun was setting again, painting the camp and the inside of the trailer yellow. His employer was sitting on the mattress with her knees drawn up just under her mouth. She was still filthy, her dark skin caked with two centuries of decay. In all honesty, she absolutely  _reeked_. Sitting with her in that metal box was starting to burn—his palms, his eyes, his nostrils. But that didn't matter. She was in front of him, gold-plated and alive. With the way she was holding her body so tight and compact, she looked like a little caramel chew. He stayed, he waited.

"What did it tell you?" she asked, looking down at her boots.

"It told me to kill you."

"That's it?"

"It got," he paused, the image of Lana's neck stretched in a scream and his Combat Knife between her thighs flashing in his mind, "descriptive."

His employer nodded, picking at a crust of dried goop on her arm. "Same here."

"It told you to kill me?"

"It told me to kill myself."

He swallowed, scanning her face for any scrap of emotion and finding none. "How... How close did it come to achieving its goal?"

Lana locked eyes with him, flashing one of her signature charming smiles. "Not close enough, daddio."

They agreed never to talk about it again. They'd lost the Minigun and the Reservist's Rifle. A regrettable loss, but certainly not worth going through that Hell all over again. No gun was worth it. Their next objective was Vault exploration, probably because of the level of familiarity for his employer. She convinced him to pick out which Vault they'd investigate first even though he  _told_ her his function was taking orders, not making decisions. She'd eyed him like even the Enclave radio station was more interesting than what he had to say before unfastening her Pip-Boy and shoving it into his ruined hands.

"Right now, Charon? Really? Just pick a place, will ya'?"

He'd be lying if he said her words didn't bother him. Instead of saying anything, though, he played with the dials on the device in his grip until he found a Vault he felt like going to. Being asked to contribute was new. He wasn't sure he liked it. After he handed the gadget back to the Wanderer, she pressed a few buttons and smiled at him. Within seconds, they had a path to Vault 106.

"You were in the military, right? I mean, that's just what I've pieced together," she said, tugging her pack on over her shoulders and pulling her braid out.

"That is correct."

"Were you a soldier or something else?"

"A soldier."

"Oh, cool. In that case, happy Veteran's Day, Charon."

_'Lordy! I just love that Vault girl! Hole-dweller one day, Paragon of all that is good and right in the world the next. And, she's been busy...'_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary: Our heroes explore the Dunwich Building together. Charon finally recognizes that Lana's not that good of a fighter, especially after she runs out of ammo. Charon also fights his first Reaver, ever, and it fucks him up bad enough that Lana actually has to step in and save his ass. Even though she's freaking out because she hates fighting ferals, she still insists on seeing it through to the end because, well, she's stubborn. Plus, she wants the caps from whatever loot is down in the basement. (SPOILER ALERT: there is none.) Once they finally get to the basement, whatever creepy spirit/demon that's down there starts trying to possess Charon and get him to kill Lana. The demon tries different tactics, from vilifying her, to playing on Charon's sympathy for and need to protect her, to straight up going into explicit detail about what it wants Charon to do to her. She snaps him out of it and they fucking book it out of there, the sounds of ferals right on their heels only there's nothing actually there behind them! Once they're out, Lana cries for a while and then knocks out until morning. They secure F. Scott Keytrail and Campground by killing the Deathclaw there, then Lana goes back to sleep. When they wake up, they talk about what happened briefly. Turns out, that demon thing had been trying to get Lana to do some stuff, too. They decide to explore some Vaults next and Charon picks out Vault 106. Lana wishes Charon a happy Veteran's Day.
> 
> Also, since my humble little fic has 150+ hits already, all of you are invited into my tumblr chateau: underhill7777.tumblr.com  
> I post a combination of Fallout stuff, writing tips, general reference posts that are relevant for one reason or another, and some humor! No politics because I'm trying to have at least one apolitical tumblr blog.


	8. November 2279: Vault 106

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so so soooo sorry, life and writer's block really got in my way. This is just Part One of Vault 106, but Part Two's not finished yet and I think you guys have waited long enough!  
> Comments and kudos add years to my lifespan<3

**11/12/2279 Wednesday**

Of course his employer would want to poke her weirdly-shaped nose around the biggest raider nest in the Capital Wasteland. Of course this would happen after she loses her sniper rifle. Of course she’d respond to his reasonable concerns with an eye roll and a dismissive wave of her hand.

“Mistress, I don’t like the look of this place,” he whispered to the girl next to him, his sharp eyes scanning over the dozens of raiders walking around Evergreen Mills. This wasn’t the place any explorer should be poking around, unless they wanted to end up in the slave pens below.

“Shh, Charon, you’ll blow our cover,” she snapped, shooting him a glare. She was on her belly, peeking over the edge of the steep cliffs surrounding the small city.

_ ‘Fine. If she wants to become a fucking slave, good for her.’ _ He huffed, settling in behind a boulder touching his shoulder with his Combat Shotgun across his lap. Ready for anything. His primary purpose was the protection of his employer. He glanced at the Wanderer, her face screwed tight in focus as she squinted at a particular knot of raiders near the mouth of a cave.

Even the stupid ones.

Hours passed, the temperature dropping until he could see the goosebumps dotting his employer’s arms. She’d pulled out a pair of dirty, scratched binoculars out of her pack. Other than that, nothing changed. Charon almost wished she’d turn on her radio or even bombard him with some more of those boring, nosy questions she loved to ask, but she stayed silent as the grave. Just stared down at Evergreen Mills with all the intensity of a bullet that couldn’t miss, gnawing at her lower lip until it was almost red.

He drifted away on the scattered clouds floating above the two of them. Thanksgiving was coming up soon. Saturday was only three shorts days away. He was certain the sky would never be perfectly blue again.

It sounded almost like crackling and if it weren’t for his time in Anchorage, he would have missed it. His left arm shot out, his fist closing on Lana’s pack before she could drop down from her spot next to him. She might be able to sneak past raiders, but she couldn’t sneak past him.

“What are you doing?”

She struggled to twist around to look back at him. “I’m tryin’ to get a closer look.”

He pulled his hand away from her. “I must advise against this, ma’am.”

“It’s not like I’m gonna’ fight them.” He crossed his arms, looking back up at the light yellow sky. “What’s the issue?”

“There may be danger here.”

“It’s a raider camp.” He said nothing, just fixed his gaze on a lone cloud shaped like some sort of flower. The Wanderer moved in his peripheral. “Look, if you’re so damn worried, why not come with me?”

“It is going to be dark soon. We should move on.” When he turned to her, she was shoving a Stealth Boy in his face, looking more determined than ever.

“Please?”

* * *

 

And that was how he found himself creeping across tin rooftops with the Paragon of the Wasteland. How they hadn’t been caught was an absolute mystery to him. Neither of them had chosen to activate Stealth Boys and it still wasn’t dark enough to provide sufficient cover. Every so often his employer would look back at him with a silliness in her dark brown eyes and he wished he could crawl inside her head just to know what was on her mind. He’d wondered more than once over the course of the past day why she hadn’t fired him for what happened in the Dunwich Building. She had enough people trying to kill her. Why put up with a bodyguard who had already tried? Maybe he’d never know.

The Wanderer held her arm up and he stilled, watching her hands grasp the edge of the roof they were crouched on top of. Conversation flowed up to them.

“So what if he’s back? He’s just gonna’ leave when some other piece of ass runs through here, like last time.”

“Stop talkin’ like that!” A smack. “He’s our Boss.”

“He killed Gunner.”

“Exactly. So now Jericho’s in charge.” His employer’s entire frame tensed. “You got a problem with that, you take it up with him. If you’re man enough.”

“Oh, fuck you. You’ll follow whoever’s in charge ‘round here.”

“Yeah. And you should, too, if you know what’s good for you. Now go the fuck to sleep.” A set of footsteps retreated and the Lone Wanderer turned back to him, her hands still on the edge and they were gripping the metal so hard, he’d be surprised if they weren’t bleeding. The Wasteland was drenched in blue and he could make out his employer’s glare over the bandana covering her nose and mouth. If he had displeased her in some way, he wasn’t sure. So he stayed quiet, watching her watching him until the footsteps around the camp quieted and the faint line of yellow lining the horizon disappeared.

Carefully, they crept up to the slope of the next building and started climbing. She stopped near the top and looked down at the torches lighting up the camp, yanking the bandana off her face. Her face was wrinkled into a deep scowl, her lip curled.

“Ma’am,” he whispered, pulling her out of her reverie. “Are we leaving?”

“Yes.” She struggled to pluck her eyes off the camp below. The climb up to the top of the cliffs was hard, but not impossible. The Wanderer almost slipped a couple of times, but he was behind her and helped her find her footing each time. When he grabbed her calve, he felt her shaking and she yanked it away.

They sat at the edge of the cliffs together. Most of the raiders and slaves had gone to sleep. Even the Super Mutant Behemoth in the pen in the center of the camp was resting while they sat in silence and stared at the moon glowing above them. After a while, Lana spoke up with a finger pointed at the sky, “Waning gibbous.  _ That’s _ what it’s called. It’s been killin’ me.” He grunted in response.

_ 'Who cares what the moon is called?' _

They stood and continued Northeast, forgoing sleep for the night.

* * *

 

“What was it like back then?”

“Cleaner.”

“Just cleaner?”

“Yes.”

“You’re quite the chatty Cathy, y’know that?”

“My primary purpose is—”

“Protection of your employer?”

“I was going to say the entertainment of my employer.”

Her laughter was rare. “You’re really something.” He grunted, shrugging and looking away from her face. It seemed to glow with sweat in the starlight. A moment of distraction was all it took out here. “Are you making jokes now, Charon? Are we at that level?” Scoffing, he traced his eyes across the arid landscape surrounding them. “Y’know, most of what you say is just incoherent whining.” She was poking at him, trying to get him to talk, to ask her the same nonsense questions she’d been bugging him with all night just to stay awake.

“I had not noticed.”

“Sure you haven’t.” The butt of her Assault Rifle scraped against the rocky ground again and again. She was using it as a walking stick again. “The textbooks in the Vault said it was nicer back then, and safer. I haven’t had chocolate since my 15th birthday, but  _ you _ could go down to the shop and get a whole bar on any old day.” Though he didn’t feel right asking about her life, she seemed happy to volunteer the information herself. “What was that like?”

“Nice, I guess.”

“Do you like jazz? It’s the only thing on the radio nowadays, but there musta’ been more to listen to back then. They played some rock n’ roll at my Prom in the Vault and it was really fun to dance to. You didn’t even need a partner for it. That’s pretty cool. You can’t dance by yourself to the jazz on the radio. It’s too sad.” The thought of a girl as uncoordinated as Lana dancing was so odd, he wasn’t sure what to say for a moment. “Charon?”

“I do not dislike it.”

“But there was more to listen to back then, right?”

“Correct.”

“Do you remember your favorite song?”

The words had barely left her mouth before he answered, “no.” There was no use in trying to remember such a silly thing.

“Do you like dancing?”

“No.”

“That’s ‘cause you’re not good at it.” He peered down at the girl marching next to him, finding her grinning with her eyebrow quirked up at him. “It’s okay to be bad at things.”

“I’m not a bad dancer.”

“Then why don’t you like it?”

He shrugged, adjusting his gaze to Nike hitting the dirt. “It is not my preferred recreational activity.”

“What is, then?”

“Being a good bodyguard.”

“And before the War?”

It took him a minute to answer. For some reason, the Contract was letting him explore this memory, so he thought back to when the world was brighter and greener. He remembered the inside of his room, the hours hunched in front of a terminal, his locked door, the little tunes and robotic beeps. “Playing games on my terminal.”

“You can play games on terminals?”

He squinted at her in confusion. “Of course.”

“I guess it just wasn’t allowed in the Vault. There was a lot of focus on productivity down there.”

“Sounds a little stressful.”

“It was great,” she muttered bitterly. They were quiet for a while afterwards, nothing but the sound of her rifle hitting the ground and their footsteps and the wind.

* * *

 

**11/13/2279 Thursday**

They had reluctantly sat down to rest behind the diner near Jury Street Metro Station. This was the first time he’d actually seen her eat since they’d sampled that Nuka Cola Quantum together. He found himself wondering how she was still alive and how she didn’t look like a washed-up husk of a person. She was pouring the contents of a can of Pork n’ Beans into her mouth as she read through something on her Pip-Boy. Every so often, raiders could be heard traipsing through the area nearby, but his employer didn’t seem too worried about them, so neither was he. Pulling a bottle of dirty water out of his pack, he let his eyes wander over her arms as they did every time the two of them were relaxed like this. No bruises. Maybe she just didn’t need as much rest and food as everyone else? He uncapped the water and took a swig. No, that made no sense. Was she the Paragon of everything good and pure in the Wastes? Yes. Was she a God? No.

“After we leave Vault 106, we gotta’ stop by Big Town. I promised a friend of mine there that I’d bring her something cool the next time I rolled by.” She tossed down the empty can and wiped the greasy edges of her mouth with the back of her hand, her Geiger counter ticking softly.

“Where are we going after that?”

“Depends. If the people in 106 need help with anything, then we’ll do that. If not… I'm not sure, honestly. Maybe we'll go camping.” He nodded, closing the now-empty bottle of irradiated water and setting it down. “You’re not hungry?”

“Not tonight, no.”

“You should eat more.”

He shrugged. “So should you.”

* * *

 

“So where are you from originally? I mean... Like, where were you born?”

“Back then, it was called California.”

“Oh shit, you’re from the NCR?”

“It wasn’t the NCR before the War.”

“What was it like?”

“It was—”

“Wait, lemme guess. Clean?”

He snorted. “It was hot and dry.”

“That sounds terrible.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Did you like it there?”

Did he like it there where everything was green and he had a tire swing in his backyard and he could still hear the birds in the trees and Kareen was close to him? “Yes.”

“Well, then I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

She swung her arms up, gesturing to the nuclear wasteland stretching out for miles and miles. “For everything, I guess.”

“You didn’t drop those bombs, ma’am. You have nothing to apologize for.”

“Where  _ were _ you when they dropped anyway?”

“Right here in the Capital.”

“Really?” He nodded. “Where?”

He could already feel the slow, pulsing climb of pain in his temples, and shook his head. “I don’t remember.”

“What’s the earliest thing you  _ can _ remember?” He shrugged, grumbling. “My earliest memory is of my dad reading to me from the Bible. Were you religious?”

“No.”

“Neither were my dad and I. My dad’s from out West. He said I still have family there and I wanna’ meet them some day. Maybe when I’m done with Project PURITY, I can go.” He noted that the Wanderer had said “I” and not “we.” He noted that she’d failed to mention her mother. For a moment, he thought to ask about her, but it wasn’t his business, so he did his job and kept his mouth shut. “Have you ever left America?”

“I was in China briefly.”

“Oh, was it nice there?”

He narrowed a single eye at her. “Actually, yes, it was very nice that time of year.”

“Really?”

“No, ma’am, we were at war.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re  _ so _ funny, Charon. Who writes your stuff?”

“The Contract, mostly.” She twisted her lips, looking up at him through cold eyes for longer than he ever liked to be looked at. “What is it?” he finally asked.

“Nothin’.” The Wanderer shrugged, pulling out a piece of bubblegum from her back pocket and tossing it in her mouth. “You must think I’m some huge meatball, huh?”

“Oh, I—”

“Don’t worry about it. I get it.” She turned and adjusted the straps of her pack. They walked on in silence, her taking the lead, him trailing behind and replaying the past few hours obsessively. In his mind, there stood Kareen, blue-eyed, blonde, tall. He’d never known the right things to say to her either.

* * *

 

The entrance to Vault 106 was tucked into the side of a cliff, next to a rusty chain link fence. They reached it just as her Pip-Boy struck 6:48 AM, the sun just starting to peek over the bleak horizon. His employer kicked a few rocks around, dribbling them between her feet. “There might still be people here. So be careful, ‘cause they’ve probably never seen a ghoul. ‘Specially one as big as you.”

Even before the War, he looked imposing, but he’d never gotten over the discomfort of having his size pointed out. Still, it’d been one of the things Kareen had liked about him. Charon spared a glance at the rock face before them, to the bent Fallout Shelter sign nearby, to the sheer dusty emptiness surrounding them. “It looks abandoned.”

“So does Vault 101, from the outside. Just hang back and lemme’ do the talking, okay, bud?”

“As you wish.”

His employer’s eyes were bright and he wondered about her age again. It seemed like everything absolutely amazed her, so she couldn’t be older than 17 with that kind of attitude. He couldn’t remember what it felt like to be that young, but he figured she didn’t feel tired the way he did. She still talked about things he hadn’t even thought about for over a century. He’d spent decades fighting off every thought and memory of Kareen, but then the Lone Wanderer waltzed into his life and all of a sudden he couldn’t go a day without remembering her and everything he’d lost.

He wasn’t a fan of remembering anything.

“You’ll see,” she bubbled over from her mouth with excitement, smoothing out the blue stray hairs framing her face like that would help how messy she looked, “it’s gonna’ be awesome. Clean water, clean food, actual medicine…” She trailed off, playing with the bracelet on her wrist and gazing back at the wooden plank door into the Vault.

“When was the last time you were in a Vault?”

“‘Bout a year ago. Have you ever been in one?”

His heart clenched. “No, never.”

“Then let’s pop your cherry, daddio!” Just like that, with a wild flip of her blue braid and a playful wink, she was back to being the character Three Dog praised on the radio. That Crazy Kid. The Vault Sensation. Little Miss One-Oh-One. Standing with her chest puffed out and chin held high, she really looked the part. The two of them marched over to the door and she hesitated for just a second, adjusted her tattered Shady Hat, and pushed it open. It was dark. Darker than either of them were expecting it to be, and she was the resident Vault Expert. Lana was standing in front of him with her shoulders stiff, her braid shifting as she looked around the cavern. At the end was a gear-shaped door darkened with dirt and rust, next to a small, flickering white light.

“We had lights out here,” the Wanderer murmured as she carefully stepped through the cavern to the light with Charon close behind. “The Brotherhood said some of these might be uninhabited.” She turned to root through a side pocket in her pack, and he cleared his throat. Just because she wasn’t in the habit of listening to him didn’t mean he could slack and fail to do his job.

“There may be danger here.”

“Oh,  _ you’re _ original. Look, the door’s shut. There’s either a perfectly good Vault behind it,” she paused and swallowed audibly, “or a shitton of corpses. In which case… we move on. That okay with you?”

It wasn’t much of a question, so changing the subject seemed more than fair to him. “How are we getting in?”

“Some head asshole in the Citadel gave me some sorta’ Master Key. Should be good for any Vault in the Capital.”

“Even yours?”

Her hands stilled and she sighed. “Apparently,” she muttered, pulling a small metal gadget out of her pack, “it’s a prototype. As far as that piece of shit’s concerned, it didn’t work.” She flicked on her light, crouching to peer under the command console. With a wave of her hands, the outer shell was on the floor. Almost like magic.

_ 'What did they teach kids down in that Vault?' _

“There’s a funny-lookin’ red dial on this thing. Turn it for me, will ya’?”

It looked like a kitchen timer and Lana hummed in approval when he twisted it.  _ Click _ , then the Vault door creaked and groaned. It pulled back as his employer stood and dusted herself off, a smug grin on her dark face. “You are very good with machines, ma'am.”

“Thanks, but I’m really just good at following instructions.”

_ ‘That makes two of us, smoothskin.’ _

She waited until the door had rolled all the way to the left before reaching down and unplugging the Brotherhood device. “If you get a weird feeling,” she sighed, turning to face him, “please say so.” He nodded, his stomach sinking. “Good.” She flicked her Pip-Boy light off, pulling her beautiful Silenced Pistol out of her thigh holster and blinking rapidly. “Whoever’s in there, they know we’re here now.”

Charon wasn’t exactly an expert on Vaults, unlike the Lone Wanderer, who had lived in one her whole life. Still, he was pretty sure Vault 106 was meant to look habitable, not like a bunch of lunatics who had never picked up a broom populated it. In the first room alone, there were giant metal trash cans, tables, and even a bookshelf on the floor. Every time either of them took a step, no matter how light, it kicked up a cloud of dust. Never mind the smell, moldy and damp, with the vaguest sweetness in the background.

“I don’t get it,” his employer whispered, her pistol hanging by her leg. He knew those words weren’t for him, so he left her to herself. It wasn’t his place to meddle anyway. When Charon had first laid eyes on the world after the Great War, he could hardly understand the emotion filling his chest. Lost people. A lost world. No combination of words could have helped him. So he stood in a corner and waited silently, his eyes trained on the anguish lining Lana’s face until he had to look away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, also a "meatball" is a sucker, if I remember correctly.


	9. November 2279: Vault 106, pt. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I'd just like to apologize. My life has been crazy these past few months. Between unemployment and applying to university, I've barely had enough time to write. I'm really sorry for the delay. You guys will be pleased to know that I've already started working on the next chapter, so you won't have to wait as long. Second of all, TW for racial slurs in the later half of this chapter. I'd like to really point out that I'm not of Chinese descent and if any of you are and aren't comfortable with me having these slurs in my story, please tell me and I will write around it. Authenticity is important to me, but so is being a good person.  
> Anyway, please enjoy the new chapter, leave kudos, and comment<3

The moment he’d met her he’d known she was too good for him. Her smile, the way she batted her eyelashes, the curls in her hair. God only knew why she’d ever spoken to him or noticed him at all. She was a high-class gal, while he worked at a gas station and barely knew how to flirt. He’d taken one look at her and known she was the only girl for him. That didn’t change even when he got shipped away to Anchorage, then to China, then to—

Blue flared in and out behind his eyelids. He rubbed his eyes with rough hands, blinking rapidly and focusing on the end of the hallway. The world was blue. The two chem-dealers at the end of the tunnel, dressed in their rags, were holding hands. They disconnected and went into separate rooms.

“ _Papi_? Jonas?”

Gray again, but red with rust.

Lana ran ahead, then stopped like she’d hit something, reaching out into the dark, empty hall. The chem-dealers weren’t there. Neither was her father. Or Jonas, whoever that was. Charon took a deep breath. The air was sweeter now, and things seemed safe enough.

His employer’s hands were balled into tight fists.

* * *

 

“You should drink some water, ma’am,” he said, staring down at the bottle of purified water in his hand. Where were they? The hum of electricity filled his ears and the hallways echoed with fading screams.

“I’m not thirsty,” she muttered from between cracked lips. Blue and white lights danced across her face, lighting up the tears falling down to her chin. “What _happened_ here?”

“The barracks are always warm, Reen.”

They were, weren’t they? And they always reeked of tobacco and sweat and sometimes beer. There was static and clicking and laughter before the music started, drifting through the hall and into his ears. Cool, blue jazz flowed through his mind, filling his thoughts with elsewhere. His head was spinning. He swore he could smell flowers and perfume. But that was impossible. The commissar would never allow that.

His footsteps were impossibly light, lighter than a feather, and it felt like he was just floating through the endless halls, trying to find an open door. On and on, the music and the easy laughter followed him.

 _When a lovely flame dies, blue gets in your eyes._ “Boy, ain’t _that_ the truth.”

There was a door. A door he recognized. A blue, metal one with windows and a handle that went all the way across. If he stopped and listened, he knew he’d hear clattering and groggy morning conversations and the gurgling of a dozen coffeemakers. His hand closed around the handle and he swung it open. The floor was tiled blue and black, outlined by blue walls and blue windows with unlit booths against the back wall. A radio rested on a counter next to him, playing old tunes he hadn’t heard since he’d been back in Fresno, since before he’d even joined the Power Armor Unit or gone to China. A plume of cigarette smoke filled the air and his eyes drifted around to a blue hat peeking over the edge of a booth in the far corner. He knew who that was and when he blinked, he was there next to her with one hand on the sticky blue table. She tilted her head up and he got an uninterrupted view of her blue eyes in the diner’s bright lights—he almost couldn’t breathe. She said something to him, but her voice sounded like noise—or something like it.

“Kareen?”

Maybe he shouldn’t have sat down to talk with a ghost. She looked just like he remembered, but it’s not like he can un-burn photographs. Or maybe she didn’t. It’d been so long. Kareen was there in front of him in her favorite blue hat, the one with the white ribbon and the flowers on one side. Those eyes twinkling like the stars or the diamond ring on her right hand. She’d cut her hair the last time he’d seen her, maybe in curls but maybe not. When she smiled and pulled off her hat, her light blonde hair stayed stiffly pinned to her head in waves, making her look like she belonged in Hollywood.

“I’ve missed you so much, sweetie,” she said and every other noise in his head died down as she reached across the table and grabbed his scarred hand. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Is it really you?”

She squinted and tilted her head. “Who else would it be?”

“I haven’t seen you in a while...” He noticed he was squeezing her hand a lot harder than intended. He eased his grip and wished he could drink in the sight of her like a glass of bourbon.

“It’s been a long time, I know. But don’t worry, I’m here to take you home.”

“Home?” He thought of Fresno, of his house with his tire swing and the street in front of it lined with trees, of ice cream and rock n’ roll and drive-in movie theaters.

“Of course, baby.” He didn’t even realize he was leaning into her until she reached out and caressed the side of his face without a hint of fear or disgust. “You’re not safe here.”

“What? Why not?”

“That girl’s putting you in danger.”

Every time he blinked, something was different. Off. Hairs out of place. Her hat was back on. Her dress changed color. Her hair was short, then long, then short again. Kareen was shuffling her deck of witch cards now and the back of each card was blue with a single four-pointed star in the middle. Once, on one of her road trips, her cards had said he’d be lucky in love and he’d believed them, especially when she started kissing him and running a hand up his thigh until he had to drive off the road and park.

“I’m not in danger.”

She smiled cryptically. “In the Blue, we can finally be happy. We can finally have the life we always wanted.” Her hands no longer shuffling, he looked back down and there were three cards in front of him.

The one on the left showed Lana slumped in her blue armchair from Megaton. There were twelve stars woven into her blue braids and bubblegum blowing past her lips. Everything about her body spoke of ease and comfort, but the Contract hanging from between two of her fingers reminded him of why she got to feel that way. She got to lounge on an armchair and be safe and free, while he didn’t.

The one in the middle showed him and Kareen sitting together in the Diner, tinted blue and grainy with static like the old Poseidon Energy commercials. The card moved with him and he stretched his hand—it was smooth in the card, and his hair covered his whole head.

The one on the right showed him before the bombs, when his skin was smooth and he still had a nose. He was standing in front of a table, his right hand raised up high with his Combat Knife in his fist. On the table were a few stacks of Pre-War Money, an Ace of Clubs card, his Combat Shotgun with shells strewn around it, and a single shot glass. All around him was thick blue smoke.

“What is this?”

“You’ve been too dependent on others,” Kareen said with a cloying sweetness in her words as she pointed to the card with Lana on it, “for too long, sweetheart. But I’ve got you now.” Her hand moved to the next card, the ring he’d gotten her catching every stray glimmer of light. “You need to change. You can change. I’m here and I want to help you. You love me, right?”

“Of course I do, you know I do.” The words felt like sand in his throat, so he reached out to show her what he couldn’t say. His hands closed around hers and she chuckled softly, her engagement ring burning like dry ice against his palm.

“Then you need to do something.” He blinked and his hands were back in his lap, her fingers tracing the edges of the last card, of him with the Combat Knife she had bought for him so, so long ago. “You need to fix this. You belong here, with me. In the Blue.”

“What do I need to do?” Anything for her. A surprise weekend road trip to the beach town of her choice, a $12,000 engagement ring, a war in another country. Anything.

There was a silver cigarette case in her hand, a cigarette between her pale pink lips. “That girl’s trying to keep you away from me. You need to get rid of her. Then you can stay here in the Blue where it’s safe.” How did she light that on her own? Smoke wrapped around Charon’s mind like a thick blanket. Through the clouds emerged the open silver case in her small hand, three unfiltered cigarettes tucked inside. “Go on, take one.”

Something was wrong. Memories poked at the inside of his skull like icicles. “For me?”

“No, the guy behind you. Of course it’s for you.” Her teeth were blindingly white, her blue eyes squinting with… what? Laughter? Distrust? Anger? “Just breathe it in, and you can stay here with me forever.”

He blinked. There it was. “You didn’t smoke.”

“What do you mean?” The cards were gone.

“Kareen didn’t smoke.”

“You’re just confused, my love. It’s been a long time—”

“Kareen didn’t smoke,” he bellowed and the ghost in front of him shrank back, glaring at him. “I remember, she tried to get me to stop before I went to Anchorage. Every time she caught me after that, she’d take the cigarette from me and throw it away.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” she chuckled, her eyes staying as cold and hard as diamonds despite her smile.

“You’re not real!” He slammed his hands down on the booth table and shot up. When he looked around, he was standing alone in a dark, damp room, surrounded by broken terminals and upended tables. It was only a few seconds before he heard his employer calling his name from the hallway, her voice guttural and raw with panic. When she burst through the door with Nike aimed and saw him, she jumped and he threw his hands up.

“Ma’am, please don’t shoot,” he croaked, almost tripping over his own tongue trying to get the words out. Lana was panting, the loose strands of black and blue hair sticking to the sides of her face. He waited until her Assault Rifle was completely lowered before letting his hands fall.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Are you _sure_?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The Wanderer stared down at the worn tips of her combat boots, leaning against Nike for a few long seconds. Finally, she looked back at Charon, her brown eyes squinting through the dark. She clicked her light on and walked over to him, grabbing his forearm. Her grip was so tight, he could feel her fluttering heartbeat through her fingers. As much as he wanted to pull away, he didn’t. Just stood and waited for her.

“Let’s not get separated again, okay? That’s the second time I’ve lost you.” He nodded.

* * *

 

There were survivors down here, skin as mottled and warped as his. Vault Dwellers with wide eyes and bared teeth, swinging sledgehammers or batons. Their blue suits were caked with grime and stained with blood or shit. The stink crept all the way up his nostrils. They attacked in a frenzy and so, were easy to kill. The whole time, they would scream. The silence after their deaths felt wrong and unnatural.

He watched Lana’s back hunched over a broken Chemistry Set, tapping her finger against some of the glass. What was she thinking? What was she even looking to get out of this? Loot? The best thing they’d found on any of the insane survivors was a single bottle of whiskey. He wondered what she had done with her old suit after she’d left 101. His employer seemed to be the sentimental type, so he doubted she’d just tossed it out.

“My dad was a doctor back in my Vault.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He couldn’t help with _this_ . “He helped people.” He still didn’t open his mouth. Then again, it’s not like she was turning to him either. “What about _your_ dad? What was _he_?”

His father always came back to him as incomplete pictures and sensations. He couldn’t think of him without imagining a glass of rum or scotch in a large, tyrannical hand. “An ass.”

“I’m sorry.”

“There is no need for you to apologize, mistress.”

* * *

 

His primary purpose was the protection of his employer. When the girl next to him screamed, he pushed ahead of her, his eyes locked onto the three Chinese soldiers charging down the hall. They ran through the glow of two ceiling lights, then Charon fired, pumping his Combat Shotgun between each round. “Fuck these Commies,” he shouted, running ahead a few steps then stopping. The Blue was gone and there were no bodies, just five spent shells on the floor.

“What did you see?” the Wanderer asked when she sat down on one of the dirty mattresses in the Living Quarters.

“When?”

“Just now,” she said, gesturing out towards the hall.

“Communists.”

She hummed quietly to herself, flicking through her Pip-boy with a tiny smile tugging at the corner of her lip. “How’d you know they were Communists?”

“They were Chinese.”

“Just ‘cause they’re Chinese doesn’t mean they’re Communists, Charon.”

_‘How naive can one kid be?’_

“Of course it does.”

“That’s a little racist.” He couldn’t stop the scoff that left his mouth. Racist? What was this, 2072? He hadn’t heard that word get thrown around in over 200 years. Leave it to Little Miss One-Oh-One to care about something so old-world and trivial. “We’ll revisit this later.”

* * *

 

It was clear now what had happened. Vault-Tec was experimenting on the people who lived here, pumping the air full of drugs. After unlocking the Overseer’s terminal and reading through it, his employer just sat on the desk in a stillness only broken by her harsh breathing. He leaned against a table across the office with his arms crossed and his Combat Shotgun within reach. She needed her space right now and he was happy to oblige.

This couldn’t be easy for her, he knew that. He wasn’t the most comforting person, but he wasn’t a total blockhead either. For decades after the Great War, he’d think about his old home, his old life, and just feel the pain twist away in his chest. He kept hoping an employer would take him out West, past the Rocky Mountains, past the Grand Canyon, past the Sierra Nevada. But none of them ever did. Now, though, stuck in a dark room that stank like dust and blood and artificial sweetness with nothing but a young girl’s shaky breathing to keep him company, he was glad he’d never gone back to California. It would’ve been hell to see his childhood home on Harrison Avenue as a pile of rubble, to see the street he’d ridden his bike down to Kareen’s house during his senior year of high school ripped up to dust, to see the inn they’d spend a summer in being used as a Super Mutant camp. It was better this way.

Now the young Wanderer was in her own hell in this Vault, discovering things she didn’t even need to know about the people who’d orchestrated her life 200 years in advance. And there was nothing he could say to her, he just had to wait. _‘If she wants to talk, she’ll talk,’_ he thought, trying to push down his discomfort with the heavy silence. After a while, she stood up, dusted herself off, and walked out of the room wordlessly. Her face was unreadable under the brim of her Shady Hat.

“Would you like to leave?” he asked once they were both outside and the door was shut. All she had to do was say the word, and they’d never even talk about this place again. He’d even help her destroy that Master Key the Brotherhood had given her. She had her right hand braced against a wall, her head tilted down so he couldn’t see her face. Ever since she found out he could see well in the dark, she’d been trying to be more careful with her facial expressions. He wasn’t sure why. So he wouldn’t know too much about her? She was a celebrity. Everyone already knew a lot about her.

She inhaled sharply, tracing the front edge of her Shady Hat with shaking fingers. “No.” She didn’t push herself away from the wall, choosing instead to lean her back against it and start gnawing at her nails. “Everyone deserves a proper burial, right? Or something like that?”

“I think so.” She nodded, wiping her wet fingers on her dirty pants and finally tilting her head to meet his gaze. To his surprise, she wasn’t crying, though her eyes were a little red.

“Well, then that’s what we’re doing here.” He tried to remember he was just a follower in her adventures, not an active participant. Analyzing her wasn’t part of his job. Still, a stream of questions muddied his thoughts.

 _‘Why do you care so much? Why does it make such a difference to you? Why are you forcing your own feelings down to stay somewhere you don’t even want to be? Why not just seal up the Vault and try to forget?’_ Even if he and his employer were close, he still wouldn’t ask her any of the questions clogging up his mind. After all, it’s not like he didn’t know the answer. It was written in the way she struggled to fight feral ghouls.

He pictured asking her and seeing her hesitate, her squinting eyes wandering and her hands softly clenching and unclenching. When she felt ready, she’d square her shoulders and lock eyes with him with her chin held high and declare, _‘it’s just the right thing to do, Charon.’_

* * *

 

It sounded like there were three women bickering in the last room, all with similar voices. The Wanderer had decided to rely more on stealth for this encounter and he couldn’t have agreed with her more. She crouched and reached up to press the button on the small panel, the door sliding open with a low mechanical _whirr_. As it moved, a thick cloud of blue dust billowed out at them. He tried to grab her bag and pull her away, but he wasn’t fast enough. They both tumbled back, their bodies and her fallen Shady Hat quickly being covered in a carpet of blue powder. It floated around them, swirling out of the way of Lana’s swatting hands as she grabbed her hat and crept into the final room with Charon following close behind. He figured they were in a reactor room, but it was missing power. There was no lightning connecting the fenced-off generator towers around the wide space, and no loud hum of electricity vibrating the metal beneath their feet. The air smelled like processed sugar, settling thick and sweet in the back of his throat. They hid behind one of the dead towers and Lana ran the tip of her finger over the rusted metal, showing him how it came away with more royal blue dust. She opened her mouth to say something, then snapped it shut as the voices of the three women wafted through the room.

“Don’t run so fast, you stupid girl!” They froze, but no footsteps came.

“We know you kept her in the wall.”

“I have to leave.”

“You did, you hid her with mom’s dress.” His employer’s brow furrowed and she flicked her eyes up to Charon’s, tapping at her ear softly.

“I—” There was a loud clattering and a thud, followed by a gasp.

“Get those rocks.”

“The blue is beautiful.”

His employer leaned a little closer, cupping a hand on one side of her mouth and whispering, “it’s the same woman.”

“How do you know?” he whispered.

“Just listen,” she replied.

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.” Lana had been right—it was all one woman doing three voices. “It is the source of all true art and science.” They heard a grunt and the tumble of sliding rocks.

“I’m goin’ in,” the Wanderer said quickly, darting away before he could even mutter a complaint. So of course he was forced to charge in after her, just in time to see her fire off her first few rounds into the leg of the woman kneeling in a blown out corner of the room. She shot up and screamed, pulling her baseball bat out with a flourish as she turned to face them. Her Vault-Tec lab coat was stained with a combination of blood, dirt, and filth, but it still couldn’t cut through the blue smell circling around all three of them. “C’mere!” Lana panted, shifting her Assault Rifle in her grip so she was holding it like a bat. What was she doing, looking for a fair fight?

“Ma’am, be cautious,” he called out, his finger itchy on the trigger.

“Come on, snakes, let’s rattle,” she laughed, running at the wounded Survivor in a zig-zag and knocking her down with a powerful swing from Nike. As the insane woman cursed and yelled nonsense from the floor, Lana flashed Charon a 150-watt smile that left him feeling uneasy. “You don’t have to take care of me, Amata. I’ve got this one. Just hang back, okay?” He nodded, fading back into the shadows and watching his employer and the Survivor fight. She was yelling and wheezing and cursing her way through it, but she never called him over so he stayed put.

As much as Charon wished he could be a source of comfort for the young Lone Wanderer, he knew it just wasn’t in his programming. His employer clearly needed a friend, not a bodyguard. Despite her irregular eating and sleeping habits and her apparent need to use Nike as both a gun and a baseball bat, she had survived. Hell, she’d done more than survived. She was the Paragon of the Wastes and Three Dog’s favorite subject.

He didn’t know how to comfort her—the Contract wasn’t meant for things like that. He knew what he’d want: to take out his anger and sadness on something. Or maybe someone. He eyed the blood leaking into the Survivor’s unfocused eyes. Being the symbol of everything good and pure in the crooked Capital, did Lana ever get a chance to be upset? To just be a person? To act her age? He cut off that train of thought as the Wanderer brought Nike down on the ghoul woman’s torso. He could hear the Survivor’s ribs cracking from where he stood by their original hiding spot.

 _‘She’s a good person,’_ he told himself over and over again. His employer dropped Nike and tackled the other woman to the ground. He blinked and the Survivor was gone. His employer got one empty moment of confusion before she was thrown across the floor like a ball of paper. She slid across the floor, only stopping when she hit the railing around one of the generators.

The moment her body hit metal, everything was Blue.

* * *

 

Charon felt like maybe these raiders were smaller than usual, and their movements a little clumsier. Their armor didn’t fit them right, bunching up in weird places and stretching too far in others. There had been three, but now there was just one. A young girl with skin the color of warm honey and two loose braids that whipped against her shoulders as she ducked from his Combat Knife. Her cheeks were full, two dimples plainly visible on her clean face as she grinned at him and ran away. She let her hand brush against one of the generators and burst into shrill giggles when he started chasing after her. Maybe the room was bigger than he remembered. It seemed to go on forever, giggles and footsteps and popping leading him to the little raider girl. She was against the wall with a smile pinned to her face and every time he took a step, she slid to her right until she disappeared again. He darted around the corner after her and stopped. The girl was gone.

In the cold Blue light, there stood a massive, lavish armchair. Along the top of the headrest, he counted three large skulls. His heart sank in his ribcage as his eyes landed on the petite girl draped across the seat of her throne in her red sequin dress.

“Oh, my god.”

It was the Queen from all those years ago, about as young as he tended to remember her. Her fine, blonde hair was still on her head, curling gently at the ends that hung over the armrest of her throne. She still wore her fishnets, but her signature leather jacket was nowhere to be found. Charon stayed rooted in place, watching himself watching her adjust the long fur she’d always kept around her shoulders back in those days. His body felt like it wasn’t his own again, like she was holding his folded Contract in the cup of her spiked corset, just waiting to pull it out and wave it in front of his face with a sadistic giggle. He was hers again and he could tell from the smile written in her mismatched eyes that she knew that just as much as he did.

“How’s my favorite monster?” She was sitting up now with her legs crossed, the tops of her fishnets peeking from beneath sparkling red fabric. “I bet you missed me. Did you miss me? Of course you missed me.”

It surprised him just how easily he fell back into their old rhythm. Maybe it shouldn’t have been so easy, but it still was. Don’t speak unless spoken to—that was her golden rule and he could follow it to the letter. He stood in front of her throne, breathing through the terror chilling his blood blue because he wasn’t allowed to sign or lean or even slouch until she said he could. “I bet you missed all those fun games we used to play,” she said, marks appearing all over her exposed freckled skin. There were dark, angry bruises on her wrists and throat, bite marks leading down her chest into her corset, and raw, pink splotches with white spots on her knees. Unable to bear the weight of who he had been, he looked down at the space between both pairs of boots.

“Oh, don’t worry, Share-un, I’ll let you go feral on me later. I meant the _other_ games we used to play.”

His stomach twisted. No. Ahzrukhal was a joke compared to the girl in front of him. When he’d met her, she was still a damn kid. Lucky him for getting to see her transform into a bloodthirsty raider ruling over an Empire of children and slaves.

“That’s right, Share,” the Queen practically purred, “take out my special knife.” His right hand brought his old Combat Knife out of its sheath and into his shaking fist. Any minute now, he’d wake up in his cramped bedroom in Fresno and get ready to go to school. “ _Look at me_ ,” she whined and his face snapped up to hers so fast, the back of his neck ached. “Cut yourself from here,” she said, pushing her fur off one shoulder and placing a finger on the bare skin there, then slowly tracing it down to the inner crease of her elbow, “to here. Nice and deep.”

So he did. Nice and deep, just like she said, shaking his head at the innuendo he knew she’d thrown in on purpose. No matter how deep he cut or how much it hurt, his eyes weren’t opening. He wasn’t in Fresno, he wasn’t in high school, he wasn’t free. This was his life now—just the Queen, her orders, and his knife.

“ _Gosh_ , you’re ugly!” she laughed, stifling the sound with one hand. “You’re ugly, but you’re still my favorite doll, Raggedy Ann.” She said something else, but it was hard to hear her through all the static blaring in his skull.

“We’re going to have so much fun together, Share-un. It’ll be just like old times.” She uncrossed her legs, then crossed them again as his vision swam. “Remember that time with the nails?” He grit his teeth harder, the tip of the knife nearing its destination. How could he forget? The whole rest of his day had been spent in a dark storage closet, pulling the nails out of the soles of his feet with the claw of a hammer. “I guess you zombies can’t get tetanus.” He tried to just focus on his breathing, but her voice squeezed in between the cracks of his resolve. “Tetanus locks you all up until you’re so stiff and hard, you can’t even breathe.” She leaned forward, bracing her elbows on her knees and looking up at him through cold, apathetic eyes. “I bet you’ve gotten so hard, you couldn’t breathe before. Or,” she chuckled, exposing her bruised neck and brushing the dark handprints with the backs of her fingers, “so hard, you didn’t let _me_ breathe.” He grit his teeth, each breath feeling like it was being forced in through a straw as a cold sweat beaded on parts of his body. “Remember that?” A question wasn’t always a command, so he stayed silent, his jaw gradually unclenching from the blood loss. Almost there… “ _Hey_ ,” she snapped, stomping her right foot, “I asked you a question, you fucker, now answer it! Do you remember that, yes or no?”

“Yes,” he groaned loudly just as the knife touched the point on his inner elbow, his pained voice ricocheting all around them.

“Shut up! Jesus, you’ll wake her up,” the Queen said with a glare, staring out beyond Charon’s left arm.

_‘Her?’_

Who could scare the Queen? He always remembered her multicolored eyes rolling under her perfectly groomed eyebrows, her cracked lips fixed into a scowl. Nothing actually impressed her, it just entertained her for a short while until she threw it away and started all over again with a new toy. But she couldn’t just throw him away. And she’d tried—he forced his thoughts away from rope and a metal bucket and the view of the sunset on the Atlantic Ocean from the twelfth-story balcony of a Presidential Suite. Oh, how she’d tried. No matter what they did, it seemed like they were stuck with each other just like she’d said so long ago: they were both too fucked up for other people. Two raiders bound through all the years separating them by the blood they had spilled together.

“Before we can play, I need you to do something for me.” He managed to holster the bloody knife before his hand went limp. She waited a few seconds, testing him, but he knew better. He knew how much she hated when he spoke out of turn. There was still a ridge down the center of his tongue because the burn had never healed properly. After that, her orders for him changed. Well, some of them had. It was a lot easier to zone out when he only moved his tongue and jaw.

“Good boy.” She always liked to talk to him like he was her pet. He’d been a guard dog since his 47 years in the Ninth Circle, since he’d been asked to stand around while men entered dirty motel rooms with girls younger than his little sister, since Samson and Dahlia had ordered him to watch over a 12-year-old girl who was smarter than all three of them combined. Since before then, too.

“When you get back, I’ll give you a special treat.” The Queen’s eyes were full of promise and he knew he’d hate the both of them after everything was over, just like every time. He’d hate her and her uneven eyes, one blue like ice, the other green like plasma, and her swollen red lips and the hair sticking to her neck and bunched in his fist and the bruises, the bite marks, the cuts, the hot pink handprints on her face, and the knowledge that he had done that to her again. “I need you to kill her, Share,” she said, dismissively waving over to his left and keeping her eyes on his face. One second, two seconds, then she nodded. She knew him well, too, and could understand when he was begging to talk just from his posture.

“Who?”

She actually pointed this time and Charon heard a clatter then a shuffle come from the mysterious darkness behind him. His heart didn’t sink, his pulse didn’t quicken. The most terrifying girl in the world was already right in front of him. “Her.” He followed her finger and turned around to look.

* * *

 

Jason had been so sure they were going to find her in her childhood home. And in a way, he’d been right. The bugs had avoided certain parts of her body, carefully chewing around the tumors and radiation burns. The thick iron bars had been pried off and the windows left open, letting in rain that solidified into sheets of ice and warped the wooden floors of her old bedroom. It was particularly cold that day, so Jason was bundled up in three layers of winter sweaters with a thick blue ushanka on his head while Charon was only given a single thick turtleneck to throw on. The Queen’s room smelled like her rose-vanilla candles, but it did little to block out the stench of the house rotting all around them. When they’d first left her house with all her neighbors’ kids, she’d taken almost her whole collection.

He stared into her broken full-length mirror at the raw strips of blood red muscle on his face and hands, wondering if maybe she’d always known they’d be back here where it all began. She’d left a single envelope on the empty pillow next to her frail head, bits of skull exposed with empty eye sockets and an open mouth. Jason threw up four times that day: twice in her bedroom and twice in the foyer when they’d first entered the house. The note had been for that girl she liked, Bianca, the one who had left in the middle of the night with not so much as a goodbye. The Queen threw a tantrum that was over just as quickly as it’d begun, then spent the rest of the day sulking on the beach. She refused to talk to anyone but that one girl who ran the Junkyard and damn near kissed the ground she walked on.

Jason crumpled up the letter and threw it down on the Queen’s gaunt corpse, cursing and burying his face in his hands before smacking down her delicate blue table lamp so it shattered on the ice. When Charon looked down at the ball of paper, he thought he could make out one word through the creases and mold: love.

* * *

 

He knew every piece of her. Her legs, veiny and swollen from rain, tracked water through the metal chamber as she shuffled towards him. With every step, he could hear it being squeezed out through the soles of her feet. There was a tumor on the left crease between her thigh and her hip, bulging like a bag of marbles packed under her pale skin. He’d been in the room when she discovered it and drank herself to sleep, leaving him free from her abuse until the next day. When she overdosed on Med-X in her old bedroom, the bugs hadn’t eaten that tumor. Her arms were longer, too, he knew. One was noticeably longer than the other. She’d been high on Psychojet one night and doing shots, waving that damn hammer around and joking through bitter tears. The human hand is made up of 27 bones and she shattered 17 of them that night, all on her right hand. He didn’t want to take her to the First Aid Center. He wanted her to stay in her Presidential Suite, drunk, high, and in pain as she sobbed loudly, but they both knew he didn’t have the luxury of hating her exactly the way he wanted to.

It’d given him a sick satisfaction knowing she was turning into something that had always disgusted her, something she’d always hated him just for being. It’s normal to either grow or shrink all around during the ghoulification process, but the Queen’s limbs just got longer without filling in, like four wads of chewed up bubblegum stretched between a dirty shoe and a sidewalk. Her upper back was like a wet bag of rocks, forcing her to hunch over with one shoulder curved lower than the other. He could hear the slide of sopping fabric on her peeling skin and the little _drip drops_ that followed. He saw her horrifying shape in a panel of cold light and caught the view of her baby blue nightgown.

Her eyes were still different colors, and they glowed through the blue darkness at him with just as much predatory intelligence as when she’d been alive. Her lips, though, her lips never changed. They were always as red as they’d been the day she got dressed up and ordered him to kill her parents.

 _‘This is no different than back then,’_ he told himself before lunging at the shambling corpse of his previous employer. He’d been killing for over 200 years, so he was sure he could handle one feral ghoul. Even one as putrid, bloated, slick, disfigured… No. He focused himself on the pursuit, his thoughts clouding with blue and confusion when she turned and bolted around a corner from him with hard, wet slaps. His breath was in his ears, one hand coming up to clutch the bleeding wound on his arm. He heard a click and a thud, his eyes shooting up just in time to see the back hem of the Queen’s dark, blue nightgown dart to the left and out of sight.

He started to roar, when everything around him flashed a brilliant, painful white.

* * *

 

He stirred when he felt the warmth in his arms jump. Cool moonlight was flowing in through the big window facing their bed, tinting the pastel room a soft blue. Outside, a storm raged on. Another flash of lightning lit up their small suite as rain pelted the broad leaves just past the glass. A few seconds later, a roar of thunder shook the bed and he could feel her start to shake under the covers.

“Reen?” he whispered groggily, tugging at the thick comforter she’d wrapped herself in.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up,” she mumbled sheepishly as she popped her head out to look at him.

“All good, doll.” His eyes were closing again, but his large hands still found her face. “How’s my girl doing? Is she okay?”

“I’m great, sweetie.” Her voice was soft and gentle, almost imaginary. When she cupped one of his hands and kissed the palm, he opened his eyes again to smile at her and pull her in for a kiss. They stayed like that for a while, just her lips pliant and insistent against his as he wrapped her up in his embrace to hide from the rain. He pulled back and gazed down at her pale face glowing in the soft light, her lips pouting and her eyes just starting to flutter open. “What is it?” she chuckled, beaming up at him.

“You’re so pretty.” Her smile turned bashful and she leaned into him again.

The night was a swirl of blue, black, and white. When he was done kissing love poems into her damp skin, they lied down next to each other with their hands locked together. He was watching her stare at the ceiling, amazed by the way her skin sparkled like it was embedded with diamonds and by the bob of her neck whenever she swallowed. The silence between them was an agony only eased by the static of the ebbing rain storm outside their suite. They both knew vacations couldn’t last forever.

“I can’t believe you’re still leaving.”

“Reen, I—”

“You’re _still_ leaving and you want me to be okay with it. Why? Because you gave me a romantic vacation in Monterey? That’s not enough.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

She pulled her hand away and sat up, the sweat on her naked back shimmering in the moonlight. “It’s not enough. Things like this, they just make it even harder,” she sniffled, turning her head away from him and wiping her face with the comforter. He knew he could reach out and touch her, but he felt miles away.

“This war can’t last forever.”

She scoffed, pulling even farther away from him and swinging her legs over the side of the bed. For a long time, she sat there and he watched her, saying nothing. He usually didn’t participate in these types of conversations. The war’s over when it’s over and that’s that, but the small crowd gathering around him pulled him in.

“Way I see it, this war’s good as done.”

“We already got Taiwan. China won’t be far behind.”

“I’ve never seen anyone fight like that, that was amazing.” One of the men slapped his back and he coughed, feeling a clump of blood rise in his throat. “Sorry, bud.”

“You really gave those commies a run for their money.”

He had never considered himself a particularly sociable person so when Michael wove through the dead assembly lines to pull him away from the group, it was almost a blessing. Since they’d secured “Gow-shung” City or whatever those chinks called it, he hadn’t even been allowed outside for a damn smoke because of his injury. He’d been trying to convince Michael to let him go outside, but the kid was too stubborn to allow it. The blast from the cloaked explosive might’ve punched into his lungs, but it hadn’t turned him into some pussy who couldn’t even step outside. The factory they’d claimed didn’t have any windows and they still hadn’t figured out how to get the building’s reactor up and running after the workers sabotaged it in the firefight. Day and night were all mixed up for him and they were burning communist propaganda and posters of the Yellow Dictator to stay warm. All the lanterns were by the Colonel’s office and as the two of them passed by, he noticed his Captain at the open door, a cloud of cigar smoke lingering around both officers and he could swear they were looking at him.

“Don’t you think it’s funny? We came here to destroy communism, but it’s their propaganda that’s keeping us warm tonight,” Michael said as he pulled a stethoscope out from his pack. The so-called clinic they were sitting in was almost in complete darkness at the moment, the guy in front of him outlined in orange but filled in with black.

“Oh, it’s nighttime? I wouldn’t know, since I’m not allowed outside.”

“Just trying to make conversation.” He put the ear tips on and shrugged. “Take off your jacket, I need to check your breathing again.” After Michael was done, he hung his stethoscope from his neck and cleared his throat. “If you quit sneaking cigs when I’m not around, you should be able to go outside by the end of the week. But it’s fine, we all make our choices.”

“I should be out there.”

“That actually reminds me, I’ve been meaning to tell you just how stupid you are.” He glared. Who the fuck did this kid think he was? “Y’know,” the medic leaned in, “you didn’t have to do that. There are plenty of those kinds of people here. Ex-cons and the like.”

“So? What’s that gotta’ do with me?”

“So folks like us, we’re worth something. You got a family back home?” His mind shot to Kareen and those clear blue eyes like jewels. “I do, too. If we died, people would miss us. If they died, who would? Leave the getting blown up to them.”

He sighed, pulling on his jacket. “How old are you again?”

“I’m 26, why?”

“Listen, Mikey, just lie back and let the big men take care of things, okay? Some of us actually have the balls to defend our country.”

“That’s amazing. We can put that on your tombstone.”

“What’s amazing is the fact that you think I’m gonna’ listen to some deadbeat who only joined the military ‘cause he thought it would make him a man.”

Michael hesitated. “Hey, man, I’m just being practical. I figured you of all people would understand.” He opened his mouth, but a movement nearby stopped him. It was the Colonel, standing tall against the orange light of one of the fires, a lit cigar in his right hand.

“Excuse me,” he said, “I need to speak with your patient.”

“Yes, sir, Colonel Horton,” Michael mumbled, slinking away into the darkness like a roach.

The Colonel regarded him quietly, taking a big drag of his thick cigar and casting a yellow glow between them. “I read your review a few moments ago, about your fight in Kaohsiung.” He spoke in a very special way, like he was dropping each word into a lake and waiting for the ripples to subside to drop the next one. He was a man who was comfortable in silence. “What you did was very brave. That is exactly the sort of initiative we look for in a soldier.” Everything he said was exact and definite. “I would like to offer you the opportunity to join the Power Armor Unit.”

“I’d be honored, sir,” he said, his heart thundering.

“Then get on your feet, soldier. It’s about time we went for a walk.”

He couldn’t have been happier to finally leave that prison. They opened the doors together, but it wasn’t the middle of the night like Michael had said. For a moment, he stared up at the sky in awe. It still looked the same shade of yellow and gray, but it was a little hard to tell through the thick bars on every window he could see. He sat on an empty wooden box with his back pressed against the door, his cloudy eyes closely trained on the girl fluttering around the small bedroom like a nervous butterfly. She was playing Pre-War rock n’ roll from a glossy red holotape player resting on top of her chest drawer. Drawings and handwritten poems were taped to the walls. He found it weird that most of the pages put up had a single hole in them, always near the top, and there were small holes all over the walls, too.

“Hey, mister,” she called from behind a sheer teal screen. “Can you dance?” He grunted. She stepped out from behind the screen in tights and a short white dress with a skirt that rippled like leaves in the wind from even the slightest movement. The bodice was tight, way too tight for a kid her age, and her puffy sleeves were draped past her shoulders. “What do you think? Is it me?” she asked, grinning and striking a silly pose. He shrugged and she rolled her eyes, tapping her foot and crossing her arms. “I used to do ballet before the world ended. What did you do?”

“Nothing.”

“Yeah, I believe that,” she muttered, floating down to the chair in front of her vanity mirror. He hated when she sat there because she always stared at him through the glass. He got it, he looked like a comic book monster. He didn’t need to be gawked at by a homicidal 12-year-old girl. She picked up her ivory seashell brush and started untangling her hair. “Turn that off for me,” she said, nodding at the holotape player, so he did. Samson’s orders had been clear. If she needed something, he had to get it for her. If she needed something done, he had to do it for her. He clicked the music off and turned to find her peering at him with those freaky eyes like she was a sharp thirty year old trapped in a preteen’s body. He made his way across the room and sat down again as she started parting her hair. He recognized this and he hated that he did, heat stinging his eyes as he looked away from her and down at his Combat Shotgun.

“I’ve decided I’m going to try to be happy, mister. Then at least someone in this family will be. I don’t think my dad’s real happy, especially since I… y’know,” she laughed and he kept staring at the patterns of chipped skin stretched across his knuckles. “The world’s shitty—I mean, crummy—if you’re a girl. Sorry, don’t tell my dad.” As if he gave enough of a damn to tell Samson his daughter was swearing. “I’m a girl and I’m young and that makes me sad, but I don’t have to be sad, right? I can choose to be happy. I mean… look at _you_ .” His remaining hair practically bristled at her mocking tone, his face slowly rising up to meet her gaze through the mirror. “There you are! Like I was saying. You look like a corpse and you’re as boring as a dirty boot, but you don’t spend your days crying like I do. Now why _is_ that?” He clenched his jaw and she smiled warmly. “I just want a friend, mister. It’s been awhile since I’ve had one.” Stubbornly, he stayed silent and didn’t avert his eyes. She broke their stare with another eyeroll and a sigh, then started braiding the hair on one side of her head. “Fine, have it your way. I don’t need friends. I can be happy on my own. See, I draw, I write poems and stories, I dance, I sing, and I can beat my dad at chess—even when mom helps him! I bet I could beat you, too... You know, sometimes I can see Bianca across the cul de sac through the bars if I stand on my backboard just right.” She tied off one braid and started on the other side. “My mom always told me to look pretty if I want to make a good impression on a boy, but I don’t think that’s working ‘cause this is my prettiest dress. I never even got to wear it for my ballet recital. It’s still a virgin,” she joked, but there was no humor in her eyes. “It’s okay. Once I’m all done with my hair, you have to find me pretty. Then you’ll like me and we can talk. Then maybe I won’t be so bored.” She wound the elastic around the end of her braid and layered both across the top of her head, keeping them up with more bobby pins than he could keep track of. “How do I look?” she asked through the mirror. He snorted, but still didn’t look away. She slid part of the way to look at him, keeping her legs open with one tucked under her thighs. “Do you think I’m pretty?”

No answer.

She sighed, stroking the hem of her dress. “You don’t want to talk with me, do you? Or draw or dance or any of that.” His stare was cold and unflinching. She laughed breathlessly as she shot up and flitted across the room to curl up in a fetal position on top of her biggest pillow. For a while, he watched her. It was his job, after all. But she was so good at staying still that he got bored. When she finally moved again, it was almost time to give her those injections Samson reminded him about everyday. She parted the golden canopy that hovered over her and climbed up onto the backboard of her twin bed. With a hand gripping one of the bedposts, she stretched and pulled herself up to peak over the lower shield of the bars.

“I can see her,” she said with a shaking voice. “Wow.” He took a deep breath and looked at the clock, the sticky smell of burning rose-vanilla candles overpowering him.

* * *

The first thing that came back to him was the throbbing pain in his left arm and shoulder. The skin there felt wet and warm. There was fabric touching his temples and cheeks, and he couldn’t separate his wrists. After stretching his fingers, he knew his hands were balled up in fabric, maybe a t-shirt. There was a weight resting in front of his torso and he was pretty sure it was his pack. There were bands of leather around his stomach, chest, and arms. He was resting against something and he could hear loud panting if he focused past the fabric rustling in his ears.

“Mistress?” The panting stopped and was replaced with the sounds of his employer’s boots on metal and the mechanical click and slide of a weapon being drawn. Whatever he had over his head was abruptly ripped off and he was face to face with the young Wanderer, who was currently glaring at him with her nostrils flared. Her face was flushed red, long rivers of sweat cutting through the dust and gathering in the blue fabric wrapped around her neck. He opened his mouth and she started yelling, jamming Nike into the underside of his chin.

“Are you gonna’ try to kill me again? Huh? You fuckin’ moron! What the fuck’s your goddamn problem? I should fuck you up right now! Fuck you!” With every word, she pressed Nike in harder. He stayed silent, not trusting himself to speak and not trusting his employer to resist the urge to shoot. “Nothing to say? Really?”

“Permission to speak,” he strained against the pressure on his neck.

“Ugh, go ahead,” she muttered and let up just enough that he started coughing.

“What happened?”

“What?” Her stance faltered for a second, but she fixed it immediately. “No, you don’t get to play dumb with me, _gringo_. What the fuck happened down there?”

“I… hallucinated. There are psychoactive drugs in the vents, ma’am. I thought—”

“You tried to kill me, Charon. Again!”

“I don’t remember that. I saw a monster.”

“Be still, my fucking heart,” she deadpanned.

“I’m being honest with you, mistress.”

Her glare didn’t melt away from her face. “What happened to your arm?”

“It was an accident. I got confused.”

“You listen to me and listen to me well, Charon. Fuck you and your secrets if they’re gonna’ get me killed. Okay?” He nodded. “Now stand up so we can get the hell outta’ here.” He stood and led both of them out, Nike pressed firmly against his back.

* * *

As they both sat in the dirt just outside the wooden door and soaked up the sunset, Lana threw her makeshift scarf down and eyed Charon carefully. The tension was so palpable, he wanted nothing more than to escape his bonds and disappear forever. “What did you see down there?” she asked with such authority, he almost forgot he was sitting just a few feet across from a teenage girl.

“An old employer.”

“That’s it?” She narrowed those dark, all-knowing eyes at him and he let his gaze drop to the light brown dirt stains on her black jeans and combat boots.

“She was bad. Worse than Ahzrukhal.”

“So you cut yourself when you saw her? That’s some pretty serious shit, Charon. When I went to check on you, I could see bone.” He said nothing and for a few seconds, neither did she. She seemed to be waiting for him, groaning softly when she realized he wasn’t going to say anything more without being prompted. “So did you know that pulse weapons mess you up?”

“I’m sorry?” He looked back up at her face to find her staring at the bandages on his left arm.

“They can knock you out. They’re not supposed to mess with people like that, so what gives?” Her eyes stayed glued to the bloodied scraps of fabric.

“I had no knowledge of this until just now, ma’am.”

Lana chuckled and finally met his eyes with her stern gaze. “Could you give me one reason why I shouldn’t just take you back to Underworld or sell your Contract? Or both?” Her words sank into his veins like ice. As weird as their time together had been, he probably had more reasons than she had time to listen to them.

“ _Any_ reason?” She shrugged, a tight smile on her face. He sighed, staring down at the leather belts looping around his torso and wrists. “I would prefer if you did not.”

“Why?”

_‘Because standing in the corner of a bar gets boring after a while. Because everyone in Underworld thinks I’m dangerous. Because who knows what my next employer will be like? Because I can do better. Because you’re the Paragon of the damn Wastes and I’ve only ever heard about you on the radio.’_

“I have enjoyed our time together.”

“Coulda’ fooled me.” The sun dipped below the horizon and neither of them spoke. Charon didn’t even dare move for fear of upsetting her. He heard her stand, heard her pacing in circles, heard the jingle of the caps in her pack as she looked through it.

* * *

**11/14/2279 Friday**  

Charon had heard of Big Town on the radio and from the no-good Slavers in Paradise Falls. He’d never actually been there himself, but a city of teenagers just seemed like a bad idea to him. His employer said she wanted to spend the night there to calm her nerves, so they were currently heading Northeast in silence. The moon was a slit in the sky, smirking down at them over some invisible joke. Whatever it was, he didn’t find it funny. The stars illuminated the sky, bathing them a bright, icy light. He thought back to the burst of lightning he’d seen in the Vault just after—

Lana’s steps were hard and even, leaving him trailing behind her. She was using Nike as a walking stick again, bumping the stock against the uneven ground as she walked. Her messy blue curls were in a high bun on the crown of her head, small strands flowing in the faint, refreshing breeze. They came to a wall. It towered over him by at least a clear foot, and was made mostly of random junk. She reached out to it, then pulled her hand away and turned to him. “This is where we part ways.”

“Where should I spend the night, ma’am?” He could see a few houses, but they all looked boarded up or booby trapped.

“Fucking _figure it out_ , Charon,” she snapped then sighed, rubbing the back of her neck and looking away. “Just be here tomorrow morning, okay?”

“I understand. Good night, mistress,” he said, nodding and turning away. She mumbled something, but the screech of metal grinding against metal drowned out her soft cotton voice.

It took him a while, but he found a small house to spend the night in. One of the windows on the bottom floor hadn’t been boarded up, so he smashed it open with the butt of his Combat Shotgun and reached in to undo the latch. The stuffy, stale air in the house was unpleasant, but definitely a welcome change from the sweetness of the drugs pumping through Vault 106. There were no pictures hung up on the peeling walls, no trinkets on any of the dusty shelves, and no containers of food anywhere in the kitchen. He stood at the foot of the stairs, wondering. Had the people who lived here been accepted into a Vault? Had they made it there in time? Had _she_?

He usually knew better than to think about those kinds of things, but tonight was different. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept like this, with nobody keeping track of him or demanding anything of him. After everything that had happened today, Charon was only too glad to be alone. He dropped his pack by the master bed upstairs, staring down at the large mattress. Big enough for two. The Wanderer’s shaking voice played over and over again in his mind like a music box.

‘ _What happened here?_ ’

He lied down and stared up at the popcorn ceiling, searching for patterns where he knew there weren’t any and ignoring the throbbing pain in his bicep. He’d spent so many nights throughout his life staring at ceilings, trying to forget so many things and remember so many others. Charon had mostly forgotten his sister, mother, and even his father, but he could reconstruct Kareen in his mind piece by piece like he was building a home. She wasn’t alive in there, not really. She was a list of traits, she was an old photograph, she was always missing something or another.

The same sad song from all those years ago trickled into his mind. He felt the rhythm inside his chest, beating alongside his heart. If he tried, he could shape the words and let them flow past his paper thin lips.

 

_They asked me how I knew_

_My true love was true_

_I, of course, replied_

_Something here inside_

_Cannot be denied_

 

_They said, someday you’ll find_

_All who love are blind_

_When your heart’s on fire_

_You must realize_

_Smoke gets in your eyes_

 

_So I chaffed them, and I gaily laughed_

_To think they would doubt our love_

_And yet today, my love has gone away_

_I am without my love_

 

_Now laughing friends deride_

_Tears I cannot hide_

_So I smile and say_

_When a lovely flame dies_

_Smoke gets in your eyes_

 

_Smoke gets in your eyes_


End file.
